Ralph Bacerra

American, (1938–2008)

Bacerra was born in Garden Grove, California, and earned his BFA in 1961 at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where he studied under the celebrated ceramist and educator Vivika Heino. He then joined the US Army, but came back to Chouinard in 1963 as chair of the ceramics department until 1971, when the department was dissolved. He returned to teaching in 1983, when he became chair of the ceramics department at the Otis Art Institute, where he stayed until 1997.