Nancy Selvin

Nancy Selvin
Born1943 (age 80–81)
Los Angeles, California, United States
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley
Known forCeramics, sculpture, installation art
SpouseSteve Selvin
AwardsNational Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council
WebsiteSelvin Studios
Nancy Selvin, Rough White, mixed media, 24" × 22" × 6", 2003.

Nancy Selvin (born 1943) is an American sculptor, recognized for ceramic works and tableaux that explore the vessel form and balance an interplay of materials, minimal forms, and expressive processes.[1][2][3][4] She emerged in the late 1960s among a "second generation" of Bay Area ceramic artists who followed the California Clay Movement and continued to challenge ceramic traditions involving expression, form and function, and an art-world that placed the medium outside its established hierarchy.[5][6][7] Her work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA),[8] Denver Art Museum,[9] Daum Museum of Contemporary Art[7] and Kohler Arts Center,[10] and belongs to the public art collections of LACMA,[11] the Smithsonian Institution,[12] Oakland Museum of California,[13] and Crocker Art Museum,[14] among others. Critic David Roth has written, "Selvin's position in the top rank of ceramic artists has come through a process of rigorous self-examination … what differentiates [her] is that she eschews realism and functionality, indicating a level of intellectual engagement not always found among ceramicists."[15] Writer and curator Jo Lauria described Selvin's tableaux as "elegiac and stylistically unified" works that serve as "forceful essays on the relationship between realism and abstraction, object and subject, decoration and use."[5] Selvin lives and works in the Berkeley, California area.[16]

  1. ^ Muchnic, Suzanne. "Galleries," Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1981, p. 12.
  2. ^ Pasfield, Veronica. "Nancy Selvin," American Ceramics, September 1992, p. 51.
  3. ^ White, Cheryl. "Nancy Selvin at Works Gallery," Artweek, June 1996, p. 22.
  4. ^ Ostermann, Matthias. Masters: Earthenware, Lark Books, 2010, p. 66–73.
  5. ^ a b Lauria, Jo. "Second Generation: Bay Area Artists," Ceramic Art and Perception, March 2005, p. 10–17.
  6. ^ Servis, Nancy M. Local Treasures: Bay Area Ceramics (Catalogue), Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Art Center, 2012.
  7. ^ a b Brown, Glenn R. "Locus of a Disseminated Style," Kansas City Review, May 2004, p.54–5.
  8. ^ Lauria, Jo. et al. Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Studio Ceramics, 1950-2000, Rizzoli International and LACMA, 2000. Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  9. ^ Denver Art Museum. Reality of Illusion (Catalogue), Denver, CO: Denver Art Museum and University of Southern California, 1980.
  10. ^ John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Clay from Molds: Multiples, Altered Castings, Combinations (Catalogue), Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1978.
  11. ^ Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Nancy Selvin," Collections. Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  12. ^ Smithsonian American Art Museum. Quilted Teapot #1, Nancy Selvin, Artworks. Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  13. ^ Lovelace, Joyce. "The Oakland Museum of California," American Craft Magazine, August/September 2003, p. 28–30, 80.
  14. ^ Crocker Art Museum. "'Cool Clay' Acquisitions Highlight Experimental Nature of Ceramics," Press Releases, July 29, 2019. Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  15. ^ Roth, David. "Nancy Selvin," American Craft, October/November 200, p. 100–1.
  16. ^ California College for the Arts. "Nancy Selvin," People. Retrieved July 25, 2018.