Known by many names—including as the 'Mama of Dada' and as the inspiration for Titanic's Rose DeWitt Bukater—Beatrice Wood was a singular icon in the history of modern and contemporary art. Her practice traversed various movements and localities, moving from the avantgarde Dada of New York to explorations of craft, decorative art, and folk art in Southern California.
Read MoreWood was born to an affluent family in San Francisco. The family later moved to New York, from where she enjoyed frequent trips to Europe to see art galleries and museums, inspiring her to become a painter. She trained at the Académie Julian in Paris, but, unsatisfied with the academic approach, she left to try the theatre world. She would continue her acting endeavours on and off in New York and Montreal.
With the start of WWI, Beatrice Wood was forced to move back to New York from Paris. While working as an actress, she incidentally met Dada artist Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp introduced her to the New York Dada scene, where she rubbed shoulders with other significant artists like Francis Picabia and Man Ray, as well as the art collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg. Duchamp was impressed by Wood and invited her to sketch and paint in his studio. With the writer Henri-Pierre Roché, the three founded the Dadaist magazine Blind Man in 1917; Wood designed the poster for an event for the magazine.
She exhibited with artists of this avantgarde circle at the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917, the same exhibition to which Duchamp submitted his famous Fountain (1917). Wood's work, entitled Un peut d'eau dans du savon (1917), provoked controversy, depicting a woman emerging from a bath, but with a piece from a bar of soap covering her genitals. Even after her involvement with Dada passed, Wood's artwork remained indebted to these avantgarde beginnings, while also drawing inspiration from the new ideas and different creative circles that she encountered.
After a brief stint in Montreal, Wood returned to New York to find that the Dada movement had disbanded. The Arensbergs had moved to Southern California, and Wood soon followed, finding an interest in theosophy and especially the teachings of Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was located in Ojai near Los Angeles.
In 1933, Wood enrolled in a ceramics course at Hollywood High School, wanting to make a matching tea pot for a set of plates she had bought on a trip to Europe. Determined to improve her pottery skills, she continued her studies and eventually rented a small shop on Sunset Boulevard to sell her work. She later studied under famed ceramicists Otto and Gertrud Natzler. As Wood developed her practice, she became known for her unconventional and loose approach to the kiln.
In the 1940s, she found success and became an established ceramicist, settling in the artistic community of Ojai and teaching ceramics courses alongside making her own artwork. Her work is distinguished by a unique lustre glaze, creating an iridescent and vibrantly colourful finish. In contrast to her elegant and decorative ceramic vessels, she also made sculptural figures notable for harmonising the humour of Dada and the naive aesthetics of folk art. She maintained an active ceramics practice until the year before her death in 1998, at the age of 105.
Beatrice Wood enjoyed many awards, including the Governor's Award for the Arts, California (1994); Gold Medal for Highest Achievement in Craftsmanship, American Craft Council (1992); Distinguished Service Award, Arizona State University (1988); Fellow of American Craft Council Women's Art Caucus, National Award, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (1987); Living Treasure of California (1984); Symposium Award, Institute for Ceramic History (1983); Goodwill Ambassador from U.S.A. to India (1961).
Beatrice Wood's solo exhibitions include Living in the Timeless: Drawings by Beatrice Wood, Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2014); Beatrice Wood: A Centennial Tribute, American Craft Museum, New York; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth; and The Butler Museum, Youngstown (1997); Life with Dada: Beatrice Wood Drawings, Philadelphia Museum of Art (1978); Ceramics: Beatrice Wood, Pasadena Art Museum, California (1959).
Group exhibitions include Ceramic Icons: Otto Heino and Beatrice Wood, Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, Ojai (2020); Vessel Orchestra, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019); Contemporary Crafts from the Museum Collections, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York (1958).
Rachel Kubrick | Ocula | 2022
