chalice

Beatrice Wood, artist

1893–1998

chalice, 1982

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: earthenware

Dimensions:
Object Height/Diameter (Height x Diameter): 29.2 x 15.8 cm
Object Height/Diameter (Height x Diameter): 11 1/2 x 6 1/4 in
Weight (Weight): 4 lbs

Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 1992.0103

On display: Kress Gallery

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Label texts

Illumination

The brilliant golden luster of this earthenware work speaks to the sacred symbolism of a chalice and Beatrice Wood’s playfulness with form and glaze. The chalice, in various shapes, is a recurring subject in her art. Wood started working with the iridescent, metallic luster glaze in the 1940s, and it became a trademark of her ceramic works.

Illumination

The brilliant golden luster of this earthenware work speaks to the sacred symbolism of a chalice and Beatrice Wood's playfulness with form and glaze. The chalice, in various shapes, is a recurring subject in her art. Wood started working with the iridescent, metallic luster glaze in the 1940s, and it became a trademark of her ceramic works.

Brosseau Center for Learning: Centenarians

Be sure to notice the work of this centenarian already on view in the galleries:

Beatrice Wood was a noted ceramist and also a sparkling personality in the New York art world in the early 20th century. She was dubbed the "Mama of Dada.” She studied at the University of Southern California. At 18, she went to Paris and became friends and lovers in an arrangement with Marcel Duchamp and his friend Henri-Pierre Roche. In New York, the three of them founded the magazine Blind Man, one of the earliest manifestoes of the Dada movement.

She moved to Los Angeles in 1928 and began making ceramics in 1937, opening a studio on Sunset Boulevard where she also worked in collage and drawings. Her autobiography is titled I Shock Myself. She was James Cameron’s inspiration for the character of Rose in the movie Titanic. Wood credited her long life to "art books, chocolate, and young men.

Forms of Thought

Beatrice Wood combines her colors like a painter, makes them vibrate like a musician. They have strength even while iridescent and transparent. They have the rhythm and lustre both of jewels and human eyes.
-Anaïs Nin

Known as the “Mama of Dada,” Beatrice Wood was admired by many, including Anaïs Nin and Marcel Duchamp. In the 1940s, after studying the technique of pottery making with Gertrud and Otto Natzler, Wood developed her own technique of luster glaze that was unique for the ceramics of that period. She often combined primitive archaic forms with an elegant, sophisticated glaze.

In her Chalice with Rings, Wood experiments with the combination of positive and negative space. The stem of the chalice is covered with clay lobs that give the piece a playful note and contradict its notion as usable artifact.

Archive Label 2003:
Beatrice Wood combines her colors like a painter, makes them vibrate like a musician. They have strength even while iridescent and transparent. They have the rhythm and lustre both of jewels and human eyes.
-Anaïs Nin

Archive Label 1999:
Known as the "Mama of Dada" and admired by many, including Anaïs Nin and Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood has been making ceramics for over 60 years. This piece combines the symbolism of the chalice with Wood's own adventurous updating of the luster glaze tradition, produced in one firing rather than the usual two.