CLAREMONT, Calif. (AP) — With his hands on the wheel, Harrison McIntosh helped steer ceramics from minor craft toward fine art for more than half a century.
The 94-year-old studio potter has made more than 9,000 pieces since he started keeping track in 1953. Some of those are in museums around the world, including the Louvre in France, the Mingei in Japan, the Smithsonian in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the San Diego Museum of Fine Art.
More than 100 pieces will be on display Saturday through Nov. 28 at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles and just a few miles from McIntosh’s home and studio in Claremont.
A soft-spoken, unassuming man with steady hands and a quick smile, McIntosh is nearly blind and hasn’t made a pot in five years. But he and Marguerite, his wife of 57 years, love to talk about his work, which the ceramic museum calls “A Timeless Legacy.”
Occasionally, someone will tell McIntosh they own one of his best pieces. He laughs and says, “I always tried to make each piece I worked on my best.”
Perfection has more than one meaning, his wife said.
“Harrison never worked fast. He’s slow in everything, and that’s why he has a quality that is special to his work,” she said.
“In a work of art, you have to put your soul into it. If you work too hard toward physical perfection, you may destroy the soul and the initial inspiration. This is what Harrison means by perfect. It still has the spirit that he wanted originally. It has nothing to do with the technical perfection of a line.”
McIntosh, who turns 95 the day before his exhibit starts, shared his studio with buddy Rupert “Rummy” Deese. The men fired all their work in a secondhand kiln they bought in San Diego in 1950.
The potters were among those who helped blur the line between fine art and decorative or applied or functional art.
A half-century ago, McIntosh sold his work for $1.50 a piece.
Today, one of McIntosh’s pots might bring $15,000 and one of his sculptures $25,000.
Inspiration for his work came from teachers, mentors and friends, as well as the cosmos, environment, architecture and literature, McIntosh said.
“I never made any pieces for any particular purpose other than just as forms I enjoyed making,” he said.
Many of his pots are painted a blue-green color.
“Part of the enjoyment of three-dimensional art is feeling its organization — how it fills the space,” Christy Johnson, the ceramic art museum’s director, said in her essay on McIntosh’s exhibit. “Perhaps never verbalized or even analyzed, it is obvious in Harrison’s work that these theories were absorbed through personal exposure and hands-on practice.”
McIntosh was born in Vallejo, outside San Francisco. Despite the Great Depression, his parents encouraged the interest he and his brother showed in art. McIntosh moved to Los Angeles in 1937 and took his first potter’s class, at the University of Southern California, in 1940. Drafted by the Army during World War II, he was discharged when his first wife became critically ill and died.
He made his way back to ceramics and moved to Claremont. Early influences included Al King, Richard Petterson and Marguerite Wildenhain, a master potter who urged her students to study the structure of a leaf, the geometry of a stone and the symmetry of a petal, McIntosh and Johnson said.
Then he became part of the “California look” that became popular during the postwar promise of prosperity. Magazines such as House Beautiful and Art and Architecture showcased the talent of various artists, including McIntosh, Sam Maloof, Charles and Ray Eames, George Nakashima and others.
Martha W. Longenecker-Roth, founding president and director emeritus of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, said McIntosh made it look easy.
“The beauty of his creations seems to be the flowering of his life,” said Longenecker-Roth. “To me, they are reflections of his whole being of integrity and humility in life’s relationships.
“Like all enduring art, it leaves nothing to be added or taken away. It serenely speaks for itself.”
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