Mary Tuthill Lindheim: Art and Inspiration

This is the first book on the American sculptor and ceramist Mary Tuthill Lindheim (1912- 2004) who,

with contemporaries Edith Heath, Peter Voulkos, Marguerite Wildenhain and others, awakened the art

world and public to the exciting potential of clay as a fine art medium. A student of Alexander Archipenko,

Isamu Noguchi, and José de Creeft, Lindheim entered ceramics in 1946 as a fully formed sculptor. A year

into her new career, she was exhibiting with the best potters of her generation. A leader in three

influential artists organizations the Association of San Francisco Potters, San Francisco Women Artists,

and Designer-Craftsmen of California Lindheim worked to foster dialogue among museums, critics, and

artists and to break down what she saw as artificial and destructive distinctions between art and craft.

During her most prolific period in ceramics, 1947-1969, she was featured prominently in national

publications and exhibited in most of the important ceramics and studio craft shows of the period. Her

work is in the collections of numerous museums, including Arizona State University Art Museum, the

Bolinas Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Mills College Art Museum, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art

(Utah State University), and the Oakland Museum of California, among others.