22 Facts About Harrison McIntosh

Harrison Edward McIntosh was an American ceramic artist.

Harrison McIntosh was an exponent of the Mid-century Modern style of ceramics, featuring simple symmetrical forms.

Harrison McIntosh's work has been exhibited in venues in the United States including the Smithsonian and internationally including at the Louvre in France.

Two years after Harrison McIntosh graduated in 1933, he became a camp artist at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Yosemite, while his brother Robert received a scholarship to attend Art Center School, now Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Harrison McIntosh began working at the Foundation of Western Art in 1938, where he would work in the mornings as a gallery attendant and assistant.

Harrison McIntosh assisted Neutra with the design and building; in the process, he learned design principles and incorporated a workshop space into the garage.

Harrison McIntosh attended the 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco where he first saw hand-thrown pottery demonstrations in the Japanese Pavilion.

In 1948, Harrison McIntosh used the GI Bill to study ceramics in the MFA program through the Claremont Graduate School directed by Millard Sheets.

Harrison McIntosh met his second wife, Marguerite Loyau, in one of Petterson's classes at Scripps College.

For various intervals between 1956 and 1959, Harrison McIntosh taught at the Los Angeles Country Art Institute, now the Otis College of Art and Design, where he became friends with fellow teacher Peter Voulkos.

Harrison McIntosh soon left the teaching position to pursue his studio work full-time.

Harrison McIntosh was hired as an employee at Metlox Manufacturing Company designing giftware prototypes from 1955 to 1956 and at Interpace International Pipe and Ceramics Corporation designing tiles from 1964 to 1966.

Harrison McIntosh was represented by Louis Newman Galleries in Beverly Hills through the 1980s, where he had a solo show almost every year until the gallery's close in 1992.

Harrison McIntosh was then represented by Santa Monica-based Frank Lloyd Gallery in the 1990s.

In 1992, Harrison McIntosh developed glaucoma and macular degeneration; nonetheless, the ceramicist continued to work in his studio until 2006, at the age of 91.

Over his more than 60-year career, Harrison McIntosh had 43 solo exhibitions.

Harrison McIntosh is represented in over 40 art collections globally.

Harrison McIntosh style remained consistent throughout his career, inspired by Japanese pottery and aesthetics, as well as European modern design.

Harrison McIntosh was particularly renown for decorating his pots with "thin sgrafitto lines or rhythmic brush spots" made by placing contrasting slip onto the surface of his works with Japanese brushes and sponges.

Harrison McIntosh's often used the mishima technique, a process in which engobe is brushed into thin incised lines in the work.

In 1968, Harrison McIntosh began exploring abstract sculptural forms, the first of which, Blue Egg, was showcased in the 1969 traveling exhibition Objects:USA.

Later works developed these ideas in subtle ways; Harrison McIntosh moved away from ovoid forms and began using more complex shapes while maintaining a reference to cosmic forms.