Adele Chase

American
(1917–2002)

Plaque
1958

Earthenware
4.625 x 18.625 x 1.125 in. (11.748 x 47.308 x 2.858 cm)
Museum Permanent Collection
1984.1981

Adele Chase was born in San Francisco, California, in 1917, where she lived and worked until her death in 2000. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1938, Chaseattended Stanford University and received a teaching degree. Early in her career, Chase was an active member of California Faience, a pottery studio in Berkeley, California, where she produced an extensive series of ceramic figurines that were marketed and sold across the United States. In 1961, Chase attended the California College of the Arts and completed an MFA.
In the 1960s, Chase opened her own art studio in Berkeley, where she continued to focus on ceramic work. Though primarily known for her ceramic figurines and handmade tiles, she was also an avid painter and sculptor. Her painting style was influenced by the Pop art movement of the 1950s as well as the rise of “op art” (art based on optical illusions). Continuously influenced by the experimental art world of twentieth-century California, Chase described her work as an interplay of contemporary patterns and abstraction mixed with natural and organic forms.

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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