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Image of #163 (Tall Abstract Jar)

Mary Lindheim (aka Mary Tuthill Lindheim)

American
(1912–2004)

#163 (Tall Abstract Jar)
1966

Stoneware
26 x 10.75 x 5 in.
Gift of the artist's estate
2010.3

Mary Lindheim’s #163 is a large rectangular vessel with a tall, footed base constructed using large slabs of clay to create a rigid, geometric form. The corresponding lid has an abstract, gestural quality, with three vertical columns connected by two staggered, horizontal bars that form a double handle. The surface of the jar and lid are dripped with a variegated glaze, yielding a patchy surface of rusty red, blue, and green dependent on the thickness of the application. As a whole, the piece encourages the viewer to think beyond the utilitarian nature of pottery and see its potential as abstract expressionist sculpture.

Born Mary Tuthill in Newton, New Jersey, in 1912, Mary Lindheim was raised in Tucson, Arizona, where the desert landscape inspired her artistic sensibilities from a young age. As a result of frequent childhood illness, Mary was tutored at home, surrounded by her father’s eclectic library and her mother’s vast collection of cultural memorabilia. Her formal studies in art began in 1930 at the California School of Fine Arts and continued at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1934, where she studied sculpture. She taught at the University of Washington before enrolling at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) in 1946 to study with ceramist Antonia Prieto. (Nora Eccles Treadwell was a ceramics student there at the same time.) In 1947 Lindheim was the first recipient of the Noni Eccles Treadwell Scholarship at CCAC. After many years of intense artistic output, for which she received numerous awards and accolades, Lindheim moved to Bolinas, California, in 1969 to pursue a slower pace of life. She nonetheless remained a staunch supporter and educator in the ceramic arts, as well as a passionate political and social activist.

Ayla Murray

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blue, blue-green

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Thumbnail image of Unearthed | The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It
Unearthed | The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It
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Ceramics
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Unearthed | 1950s and 1960s

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