Dorothy Bearnson

American, (1921–2015)

Bearnson was born in Salt Lake City and lived her adult life in the house where she was raised as the only child of two teachers. She did undergraduate work at the University of Virginia from 1941 to 1942, and at the University of Utah, where she earned her BA in 1943 and her MA in 1945. During many following summers she studied with renowned ceramist Marguerite Wildenhain at her Pond Farm workshops in Guerneville, California (see Wildenhain’s work of the 1950s). From 1956 to 1957 Bearnson studied at the Arabia Porcelain Factory in Helsinki, Finland, under a Fulbright Grant. This experience influenced much of her work thereafter.

Bearnson was a student of Shoji Hamada at San Jose State College during the summer of 1963. Though she was initially hired to teach drawing and design at the University of Utah, under her guidance a fully equipped ceramics studio was established in 1971. Bearnson organized pottery seminars, glass-blowing workshops, and invited world-renowned artists to visit. She taught ceramics at the University of Utah from 1962 until 1999.