Richard DeVore Earthenware Vessel, American Studio Ceramic, c. 1985

Terracotta the color of Cranbrook in November — DeVore at his most spare, and his most certain.

ARTIST — Richard DeVore (American, 1933–2006)

PERIOD — c. 1985

CATEGORY — Studio Ceramic / Sculpture

MATERIALS — Earthenware, unglazed, burnished terracotta surface

DIMENSIONS — 7½ h × 6 w × 4¾ d in (19 × 15 × 12 cm)

CONTEXT — DeVore studied under Maija Grotell at Cranbrook and later chaired its ceramics department before a long tenure at Colorado State University. His vessels are held in over forty museum collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Louvre, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.This example works in the unglazed mode — raw, burnished earthenware — that foregrounds form over surface incident. The angled, open rim is characteristic of his mature language: asymmetry that reads as inevitability rather than gesture.