Arresting Sensuality in Clay
By Tom Wachunas
“Let us honor clay, the impressionable and
responsive art media;…the most direct and colorful sculptural voice and the
most exciting.” -Waylande Gregory
EXHIBIT: Waylande Gegory: Art Deco Ceramics And The
Atomic Impulse, at Canton Museum of Art, 1001 Market Avenue North THROUGH
JULY 20 www.cantonart.org
Considering the
prolific, diverse output and unarguable importance of American ceramist
Waylande Gregory (1905-1971), one surprising aspect of this exhibit of more
than sixty of his works (in ceramics, glass and painting) is that it marks his first retrospective. This major project
was organized by the University of Richmond Museums, Virginia, and curated by
Thomas C. Folk, Ph.D., a ceramics scholar. I recommend picking up a copy of the
current CMA magazine while you’re in the museum, and reading the excellent
cover story. I also include here links to two comprehensive articles on Gregory’s
life and work by Mr. Folk:
After the
devastation of World War I, Art Deco signaled not an outright departure from
Art Nouveau’s highly ornate, stylized naturalism, but rather a distilling or
refinement of those characteristics. Along with that refinement, and against
the backdrop of the burgeoning Jazz Age, Art Deco as pure design was in many
ways an exuberant manifestation of Modernism’s eclecticism in an age of ever-
expanding industrial and technological advances. As a style, it was as much a
playful cultural attitude about speed, power and experimentation as it was an
elegant formal aesthetic.
And there are attitudes aplenty in this
exhibit, widening our appreciation of Art Deco’s place in the context of
Modernism. Waylande Gregory’s oeuvre is a titillating amalgam of stylistic
elements, and certainly not restricted to Deco’s more common architectural
associations with zig-zag symmetries and sleek geometries.
That said, beyond
the impressive collection of superbly crafted, shimmering plates and vessels, there
are many ceramic sculptures here – human and animal - invested with a marvelous fluidity of line and
lyrical spirit, harkening at times to Romantic expressivity and even a
Neoclassical sensibility. Two exquisite figural examples are Nautch Dancer and Salome. Both of these glazed earthenware gems, made when Gregory
was the primary sculptor at Cowan Pottery in Rocky River, Ohio (1928-1932),
exude palpable sensuality.
Sensuality of a
rawer, more plump and visceral sort is at work in four terra cotta sculptures
that were part of a group of eight “Electrons” (four male, four female) that
originally surrounded Gregory’s ambitious Fountain
of the Atom, made for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. These are relatively
heroic in size, and clearly point to Gregory’s daring and ingenuity. As written
in the CMA magazine essay, Gregory “…was
the first modern ceramist to create large-scale ceramic sculptures. Similar to
the technique developed by the ancient Etruscans, he fired is monumental
sculptures only once…”
CMA Curator Lynnda
Arrasmith and Assistant Curator Kathy Fleeher have accomplished a remarkable
task in mounting the sprawling variety of works in this show. They seem to
radiate from the central placement of this atomic grouping – a spatial nucleus,
so to speak - consisting of Male Electron with Green Hair, Male Electron
with Fins, Female Electron with Bolt of Lightning and Female Electron with Bubbles.
What I find most fascinating about
these colorful public renderings is Gregory’s decision to fashion them as
primeval sprites and nymphs caught up in an acrobatic (if not vaguely erotic,
in an innocent kind of way) dance – what he called “elemental little savages of
boundless electrical energy…” It’s a
delightfully unexpected scenario of ancient spirits celebrating the dawn of an
exciting (and scary) new era for humanity. Indecorous Deco? Not really.
Artistically arresting? Absolutely.
So let me close this on a somewhat relevant
tangent. If such unabashedly naked figures as Gregory’s “Electrons” were so
visible in a newly-commissioned public artwork of today – say, right here in
Canton - I imagine they might prompt all manner of turned heads, raised
eyebrows, tongue clucking and blushing. Interestingly enough, I’m reminded that
I haven’t heard a peep of late about ArtsinStark’s commissioning of 11 public
sculptures celebrating the birthplace of professional football. I wonder: How
many candidates are out there with Waylande Gregory’s boldness of vision, his
sense of playfulness, history and formal elegance?
Would it push the
boundaries of “good taste” too much to see a life-size terra cotta (or marble
or bronze for that matter) figure - sans uniform, pads or helmet - faithfully rendered in the High Classical
style of sinewy Greek male statuary, holding aloft a football while shaking his
posterior in an end-zone (as it were) victory dance? Elemental savage indeed.
PHOTOS (from top):
Salome, ca. 1929, glazed earthenware,
private collection; Girl with Olive, 1932,
glazed stoneware, estate of Yolande Gregory; group of four “Electrons”, from Fountain of the Atom; Mermaid Vase, circa
1944, glazed earthenware with luster decoration, collection of Giovanni
Robertis
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