Mithé Espelt

Pair of Mithé Espelt "Pyramide" Lamps with Crystallised Glass and Crackled Gold

c. 1990

Mirror Arche #1 by Mithé Espelt (1923-2020) is a rare and poetic example of the French ceramicist’s mastery of form, texture, and quiet symbolism. Crafted in the mid-1960s in her ate...

The Santa Fe #1 mirror by Mithé Espelt is a striking example of the French artist's mastery in ceramic design, reflecting her unique blend of artistry and craftsmanship. Espelt is re...

Red, Black & Brown, a ceramic sculpture of high-fired clay pigmented with oxides, is a work by New York artist Harold Wortsman. Red, Black & Brown was recently exhibited at "Harold Wortsman: Time and Space" at the Orange Art Foundation, February-March 2022, New York City. Note the blending of geometric and organic forms in this work – it is characteristic of his practice – warm, contemporary, uniquely crafted, yet speaks to ancient, primitive traditions of art-making that cross cultures and histories. Highly attuned to the art of Africa, the Middle East, India and Asia, his forms are organic abstracts with masculine and feminine attributes that resonate together as a pleasing enigma. They make sense immediately, yet never give up all their secrets. From Harold Wortsman – "With sculpture, my material of choice is high-fired clay. Pieces are first low-fired in an electric kiln. I do not use glazes. Instead, I use oxides applied to the bisqued (low-fired) clay. As with a tattoo, oxides permit the surface underneath to breathe. The work is then high-fired in a gas kiln with double reduction to cone 10. The final temperature is 2,300 degrees F. At a certain point, oxygen intake is reduced to the kiln. Because the fire has reached a critical mass, it needs oxygen and chemically takes it from the clay and the oxides. Like a jazz improvisation, each kiln load comes out slightly different." From Jonathan Goodman – "Wortsman has increasingly moved into his own – a place in which the relations between the abstractions of volume and the intimations of very old culture are merged in a way that is new." – Essay, "Harold Wortsman: Time and Space", Orange Art Foundation, February 2022, New York City. Harold Wortsman is a sculptor and printmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. He “creates forms that bring to mind archaic cult objects and exude a quiet concentrated strength.” (Argauer Zeitung, Switzerland). His work, an edgy mix of freedom and clarity, can be found in public and private collections in the US, including The Library of Congress, Yale University, The New York Public Library Print Collection, The New York Historical Society, Smith College, Indiana University’s Lilly Library, Brandeis University, The Newark Public Library Special Collections Division, and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum Print Archive. Also in private and public collections in Europe, including the Municipal Collection of the City of Brugg, Switzerland. Harold studied at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, with sculptor George Spaventa...

Moonstruck 1994 3D porcelain ceramic plate. limited edition. Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic Falcone (of Provincetown's Sun Gallery) when he was starting out as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Provincetown and was studying with Hans Hofmann. Grooms was born in Nashville, Tennessee during the middle of the Great Depression. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, then at Nashville's Peabody College. In 1956, Grooms moved to New York City, to enroll at the New School for Social Research. A year later, Grooms attended a summer session at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts. There he met experimental animation pioneer Yvonne Andersen, with whom he collaborated on several short films. Grooms follows in the tradition of William Hogarth and Honoré Daumier, who were canny commentators on the human condition. In 1969, Peter Schjeldahl compared Grooms to Marcel Duchamp, because both embodied "a movement of one man that is open to everybody." In the spring of 1958, Grooms, Yvonne Andersen and Lester Johnson each painted twelve-foot by twelve-foot panels, which they erected with telephone poles on a parking lot adjacent an amusement park in Salisbury, MA. Inspired by artist-run spaces such as New York's Hansa Gallery and Phoenix, and Provincetown's Sun Gallery, Grooms and painter Jay Milder opened the City Gallery in Grooms' second-floor loft in the Flatiron District. When Phoenix refused to show Claes Oldenburg, Grooms and Milder dropped out of Phoenix and City Gallery presented Oldenberg's first New York exhibition, as well as that of Jim Dine. Other artists who showed at City Gallery include Stephen Durkee, Mimi Gross (daughter of Chaim Gross and Red grooms wife), Bob Thompson, Lester Johnson, and Alex Katz. Inspired by George Méliès's 1902 film A Trip to the Moon...