MOUNT VERNON — Three internationally known ceramicists, whose work has been showcased in a monthlong exhibition at Cornell College, will discuss their utilitarian pottery during the exhibition’s closing reception Sunday, Feb. 9, at McWethy Hall.
The closing reception for “Guillermo Cuellar: Influences and Recent Work” is from 2-4 p.m. Cuellar, a 1976 Cornell graduate, Warren MacKenzie of Stillwater, Minn., and Clary Illian of Ely, Iowa, will hold an informal artists’ talk at 3 p.m. in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery.
The three potters met more than 20 years ago at workshops in Caracas, Venezuela. Cuellar has organized more than 20 shows in the past 12 years at his studio in Turgua, Venezuela. He has shown his work in numerous venues including the Venezuelan National Art Gallery, the Northern Clay Center in Minnesota, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico, the Smithsonian Institution and private galleries in the United States, England, Venezuela and Chile. When he is not making pots, Cuellar leads wilderness trips in Venezuela, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
MacKenzie, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1940s, is considered one of America’s greatest living functional potters. His work is exhibited around the world, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and at his gallery in Japan. Illian, a Cedar Rapids native and University of Iowa graduate, has taught in countless venues in the United States and has working collections around the globe. MacKenzie and Illian are former students of famed English ceramicist Bernard Leach.
The Cornell exhibition also features works from the Rose and Angelo Garzio Ceramics and Ethnographic Collection, and the Joan Mannheimer Collection of the University of Iowa Museum of Art (UIMA). Among the UIMA pieces are works by Shoji Hamada, Bernard Leach, Michael Leach, John Leach, Byron Temple, Illian, MacKenzie and selected Korean Yi Dynasty pieces. Regular gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.