Greenwich Historical Society Hosting Talks & Workshops Aligned with Katherine Choy Exhibit

COS COB, Conn. – A major figure in the world of mid-century studio ceramics, Katherine Choy (1927-1958) was an influential young potter working in a strikingly modern style in the 1950s. Her innovative works are featured in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Newark Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art. A selection of her work can now be seen at Greenwich Historical Society, just miles from where she established a reputation and created many of her finest works. 

Radical Pots & Cooperative Hands: Katherine Choy and Clay Art Center, on view through February 4, 2024, features Choy’s distinctive and boundary-pushing ceramic vessels alongside never-before-seen photographs, letters, and other archival material charting her rapid rise to artistic prominence, her indelible influence as an educator and her dedication to forming Clay Art Center, a cooperative studio space for ceramic artists which continues to thrive in Port Chester, N.Y. 

Curator-led gallery talks and public hands-on clay workshops and demonstrations, organized in partnership with Clay Art Center, will be offered throughout the exhibition’s run:

• November 2:  6:30 – 8:30pm: A hands-on clay workshop dedicated to hand-building organic vase forms will be led by Clay Art Center Studio Technician and past Artist-in-Residence Avery Wells. Participants will hand build, utilizing coils and pinch pots, to form an organic vase inspired by Katherine Choy’s mid-century work. Participants will choose a glaze for their piece and the piece will be available for pickup after firing.

For more information and to register: https://greenwichhistory.org/event/wheel-and-hand-choy/

• November 10: 11- 12pm: Visionary Art Pottery and Studio Craft in Our Backyard: Leon Gambetta Volkmar and Katherine Choy, discussion and guided tour will explore connections between the lives and legacies of Greenwich-area ceramic artists Leon Gambetta Volkmar (1879-1959) and Katherine Choy. A prominent figure in the N.Y. art pottery world, Volkmar’s handcrafted and sensitively glazed ceramic vessels were nationally recognized and collected broadly by connoisseurs, including the Bush-Holley House's one-time resident Emma Constant Holley MacRae. A selection of Volkmar pieces from the Greenwich Historical Society Museum Collection will be on display for the duration of the exhibition. For more information and to register: https://greenwichhistory.org/event/volkmar/
• January 18, 2024: 6 - 7pm: Mel Buchanan, RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, will present an illustrated lecture detailing Katherine Choy’s remarkable career as a ceramic artist and educator, highlighting her years spent in New Orleans leading ceramics at Newcomb College and connecting with the city’s artistic vanguard. Buchanan, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at NOMA, is the curator and author of Katherine Choy: Radical Potter in 1950s New Orleans (2022). For more information and to register: https://greenwichhistory.org/event/lecture-choy-potter-1950s/
• January 25, 2024: 11am – 12pm Historical Society Curator Maggie Dimock will host an in-depth tour and conversation about the exhibition Radical Pots & Cooperative Hands followed by coffee and light refreshments in the Museum Café. For more information and to register: https://greenwichhistory.org/event/coffee-tour-choy/

“Katherine Choy’s work was on the cutting edge of contemporary ceramic art,” says Historical Society Curator of Exhibitions and Collections Maggie Dimock. “As a rising talent at an exciting time in the development of American studio ceramics, she was producing clay vessels that explored many of the same formal ideas at play in the concurrent field of abstract expressionist painting in the 1940s and 50s. A young artist who emigrated from China in 1946 at the age of 19, her rapid ascent to prominence was remarkable, and speaks to her intense ambition and vision.”

In 1957 Choy channeled her visionary approach to ceramics and community into the founding of Clay Art Center with the support of co-founder Henry Okamoto (1922-1988), a Japanese American potter who resided in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich. Through Choy and Okamoto’s leadership Clay Art Center’s reputation as a serious center for ceramic study and artistic production grew among American potters.

Radical Pots & Cooperative Hands brings the story of Katherine Choy and Henry Okamoto to life in the same community where they lived and worked, and where Clay Art Center continues to serve the tristate area as an important center for ceramic art. It comes at a time of revitalized interest and recognition of Katherine Choy’s artistic legacy; Choy’s work was featured in an installation of Chinese women ceramic artists at Manitoga, The Russell Wright Design Center in Garrison, N.Y. in summer 2023, and was the subject of the exhibition and accompanying catalogue Katherine Choy: Radical Potter in 1950s New Orleans, at the New Orleans Museum of Art, curated by Mel Buchanan, RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, in 2022-23.

Radical Pots & Cooperative Hands: Katherine Choy and Clay Art Center is organized by the Greenwich Historical Society with artwork loans and research support provided by Clay Art Center. The exhibition is generously supported in part by Josie Merck. 

For information about all public programs or to arrange a group tour please visit www.greenwichhistory.orgor call (203) 869-6899

Greenwich Historical Society is located at 47 Strickland Rd., Cos Cob, Conn. Museum galleries are open Wednesdays through Sunday, from 12pm - 4pm, with museum admission.

Photo credits: All provided by Greenwich Historical Society with permission. Photos by Asher Almonacy

Katherine Choy installation

Radical Pots exhibition floor: 

Maggie Dimock on exhibition floor