Betty Woodman

American
(1930–2018)

June in Italy
2001

Earthenware, epoxy resin, laquer, and paint
39 x 89 x 9 in. (99.06 x 226.06 x 22.86 cm)
Gift of Frederick Q. Lawson
2003.59.1-3

Betty Woodman was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1930. Her father’s job as a woodworker and artist, along with her mother’s feminist values, inspired Woodman to pursue an art career. Having taken her first pottery class when she was sixteen, Woodman went on to study ceramics at Alfred University in New York. For almost two decades after leaving Alfred, she worked as a production potter, creating functional ceramic vessels. In the 1970s, Woodman began experimenting with alternative forms and shapes and ultimately abandoned functional pottery altogether. A proponent of collaboration, Woodman is also known for her work with other artists across mediums, including master printer Bud Shark and Joyce Kozloff, an original member of the pattern and decoration movement and an active participant in the feminist art movement.

Woodman became professor of art at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1978, where she would teach for twenty years alongside her husband, George Woodman, the head of the university’s art department. Outside of her teaching, Woodman opened and ran the Pottery Lab, a recreational ceramics studio in Boulder, where individuals could make pottery for fun, or study to become a professional. Woodman also spent a lot time in Italy, where she was inspired by ancient Mediterranean ceramics.

Olivia Brock

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This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Women, Surrealism, and Abstraction , 8/25/2020 - 7/9/2022
• Unearthed , 8/23/2022 - 5/14/2023

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