Ruth Duckworth Glazed Stoneware Sculptural Vessel Group, c. 1975
Three vessels on a tray — a small, complete world, entirely Duckworth's.
ARTIST — Ruth Duckworth (German-American, 1919–2009)
PERIOD — c. 1975
CATEGORY — Studio Ceramic / Sculpture
MATERIALS — Glazed stoneware, unsigned
DIMENSIONS — 8 h × 9 w × 9 d in (20 × 23 × 23 cm)
CONTEXT — Duckworth left England in 1964 to accept a teaching position at the University of Chicago, where she remained until her death, drawing her inspiration from the natural world — "I think of life as a unity. This unity includes mountains, mice, rocks, trees, and women and men. It is all one lump of clay." Influenced by Isamu Noguchi, Henry Moore, and Constantin Brancusi, her signature organic abstract forms adorn public spaces and museum collections throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This multi-element composition — three vessels of varying scale arranged on a shared tray base, glazed in blush, celadon, and terracotta — is among her more intimate and domestic works, the grouping functioning as a single sculptural statement. Unsigned.