■ ► *952
Potters Bernard Leach and Shoji
Hamada, along with philosopher
Soetsu Yanagi, travel aeross the U.S.,
giving demonstrations, workshops,
and talks, and spreading enthusiasm
for Asian aesthetics and pottery.
*957
Black Mountain College closes, end-
ing a 24-year run that included notable
alumni and faculty such as Josef and
Anni Albers, Molly Gregory, Peter
Voulkos, and Karen Karnes.
1958
American crafts, 130 pieces by 75 makers,
arc featured in the U.S. Pavilion of the
Brussels World’s Fair. Inspired by
glass in the Czechoslovakian Pavilion,
the Corning Museum organizes “Glass
1959,” the first major post-war interna-
tional survey of modern glass.
« *953►
Textile artist Jack Lenor Larsen
forms Jack Lenor Larsen Inc.
A showroom opens by the next
year. His work remains at
the forefront for decades, as
in this ’60s collaboration with
designer Pierre Paulin.
1 1953
Ceramics
Monthly
begins
publication.
1 1953
Charismatic Peter Voulkos builds -
literally - a ceramics department at
Los Angeles County Art Institute
(now Otis), with help from student
Paul Soldner. The studio draws an
electrifying group, including Ken
Price and John Mason.
-*■
1956
Funded by a grant, Robert Willson
researches glass around the world
and soon becomes one of the first
Americans to collaborate in Italy
with master craftsmen to make
molten glass sculptures.
♦ 1958
Harvey Littleton, now a professor
of ceramics at the University of
Wisconsin, attempts to melt glass
in a ceramics kiln.
«■ *957
Furniture by
Craftsmen,” the first
exhibition exclusively
on studio furniture,
opens at the Museum
of Contemporary Crafts
in New York.
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♦ *953
The ACEC hosts the juried exhibition
Designer Craftsmen U.S.A. 1953,”
one of the first comprehensive
showings of the work of top
U.S. craftspeople.
*954
Brookfield Craft Center is founded
near Danbury, CT.
*955
Rose Slivka joins
Craft Horizons.
By
1959 she is editor in chief, a role she
plays for the next 20 years.
1956
The Museum of Contemporary Crafts,
designed by architect David Campbell,
opens. Paul J. Smith becomes its direc-
tor in 1963. In 1979, it becomes the
American Craft Museum; in 2002, the
Museum of Arts and Design.
♦ 1957
‘Craftsmen Today,” the first U.S.
craft conference, is sponsored by the
ACC and held in Asilomar, CA. The
event draws stars such as Charles Eames,
who proclaims the importance of the
handmade in his own work and for the
culture at large.
«■*957
Disney releases
Johnny Tremain
, based
on a best-selling 1943
children’s novel about
a young apprentice sil-
versmith during the
Revolutionary War.
■►*959
Concerned citizens save Simon Rodia’s
giant
W atts Towers
sculptures, made
of scrap steel, rebar, and mortar, from
demolition. Later the structures earn
historic status.
« «* *959
Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Guggenheim Museum opens,
six months after the archi-
tect’s death. A controversial
structure at the time, it’s now
a cultural landmark and a
prime example of modernism.
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