Surveys the works of more than one hundred contemporary masters of ceramics.

Charles Krafft's one-of-a-kind artwork moves in provocative directions, combining the highbrow with the gruesome in such works as his Disasterware (Delft-style painted plates featuring catastrophes) and Sponeware ("the human bone china"). Krafft's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Artforum, and Juxtapoz. With 60 color photographs, the full range of his plates, paintings, and other creations is sampled in this book, which also includes biographical information on this remarkable self-taught painter. The Art of Charles Krafft documents Krafft's major shows and productions.

Ceramics and the Museum interrogates the relationship between art-oriented ceramic practice and museum practice in Britain since 1970. Laura Breen examines the identity of ceramics as an art form, drawing on examples of work by artist-makers such as Edmund de Waal and Grayson Perry; addresses the impact of policy making on ceramic practice; traces the shift from object to project in ceramic practice and in the evolution of ceramic sculpture; explores how museums facilitated multisensory engagement with ceramic material and process, and analyses the exhibition as a text in itself. Proposing the notion that 'gestures of showing,' such as exhibitions and installation art, can be read as statements, she examines what they tell us about the identity of ceramics at particular moments in time. Highlighting the ways in which these gestures have constructed ceramics as a category of artistic practice, Breen argues that they reveal gaps between narrative and practice, which in turn can be used to deconstruct the art.

This book investigates how British contemporary artists who work with clay have managed, in the space of a single generation, to take ceramics from niche-interest craft to the pristine territories of the contemporary art gallery. This development has been accompanied (and perhaps propelled) by the kind of critical discussion usually reserved for the 'higher' discipline of sculpture. Ceramics is now encountering and colliding with sculpture, both formally and intellectually. Laura Gray examines what this means for the old hierarchies between art and craft, the identity of the potter, and the character of a discipline tied to a specific material but wanting to participate in critical discussions that extend far beyond clay.

The first comprehensive study of the most important ceramic innovation of the 19th century Colorful, wildly imaginative, and technically innovative, majolica was functional and aesthetic ceramic ware. Its subject matter reflects a range of 19th-century preoccupations, from botany and zoology to popular humor and the macabre. Majolica Mania examines the medium’s considerable impact, from wares used in domestic settings to monumental pieces at the World’s Fairs. Essays by international experts address the extensive output of the originators and manufacturers in England—including Minton, Wedgwood, and George Jones—and the migration of English craftsmen to the U.S. New research including information on important American makers in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia is also featured. Fully illustrated, the book is enlivened by new photography of pieces from major museums and private collections in the U.S. and Great Britain.

Widely considered to be the most comprehensive introduction to ceramics available, this book contains numerous step-by-step illustrations of various ceramic techniques to guide the beginner as well as inspirational ceramic pieces from contemporary potters from around the world. For the more experienced ceramist, there is a wealth of technical detail on things like glaze formulas and temperature conversions which make the book an ideal reference. To quote one review: ...I am a studio potter and would not be without it. The fourth edition has been updated to include profiles of key ceramists who have influenced the field, new material on marketing ceramics including using the internet, more on the use of computers, added coverage of paperclays, using gold and alternative glazes.

The Arizona State University Art Museum is renowned for its extensive and notable craft collection and features international acquisitions in wood, ceramic, and fiber. This book, edited by the museum's curators, uses the ASU collection to explore the idea of craft within a critical context, as both idea and action. Crafting a Continuum begins with the genesis of the craft collection and relates it to the historical development of craft in the United States and abroad, exploring both anthropological and cultural concepts of the field. Peter Held and Heather Sealy Lineberry present photographs of the museum's objects alongside essays by distinguished scholars to illuminate historical and contemporary trends. Sidebars and essays by writers in the craft field offer a broad overview of the future of contemporary craft.