Katherine Nelson

Vintage ceramic vessel or vase features pitcher shaped body with decorative handle. The lower half of the body is lightly faceted, resulting in octagonal outline when the vessel is viewed from above; the upper half has rounded form with lightly flared rim. The minimal handle is accented with tear or water drop shaped element on top. The vase is decorated with complex blue and white glaze with foaming effect; the free-flowing pattern of larger bubble elements adds tactile, textural quality to the unusual glaze. The vessel is signed by the artist on the bottom; same signature can be seen on the bowl in E. John Bullard Collection of Bates College Museum of Art. Provenance: the vessel was acquired at the arts, antiques, and Folk Art collector estate in Western New York state. Clara Katherine Nelson (1890–1984) was a renowned American cubist painter and ceramic artist. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design and taught at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. Nelson was invited by Charles Fergus Binns to teach painting and drawing at Alfred University at the School of Ceramics in 1920, replacing Marion Fosdick, who shifted to teaching modeling and pottery. Nelson worked with Binns and Fosdick to develop pioneering curriculum for functional ceramic education and started to work in pottery and ceramics herself; in 1927 they were joined by Charles Harder, who brought in the “New Bauhaus” aesthetic and studied with Lásló Moholoy-Nagy in Chicago. Fosdick, Harder and Nelson created the Ceramic Art curriculum throughout the 1930s and oversaw its transformation into Industrial Ceramic Design (from 1939–1951), and on into a more Bauhaus-inspired Ceramic Design (1951–1965). Nelson's students included Jane and Gordon Martz, Glidden Parker, Herb Cohen...

This portrait in pastel represents the confluence of two important artists: C. Katherine Nelson, painter and designer, and her onetime student, Glidden Parker, who became one of Ame...