Nashville's Frist Center to Open Exhibit 'Women, Art, and Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise'

Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts presents Women, Art, and Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise, the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of Newcomb arts and crafts in more than a quarter century. Created and organized by the Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the exhibition is making the final stop of its nine-city tour at the Frist Center. The public opening on July 29 will be celebrated with a lecture by the distinguished Newcomb Pottery authority Sally Main, former senior curator at the Newcomb Art Museum, and a special Frist Friday concert of New Orleans music.

Newcomb pottery is one of the most significant of all American art potteries, critically acclaimed and highly coveted. With more than 180 works that span 45 years of production (1895-1940), Women, Art, and Social Change offers new insights into the Newcomb community's enduring mark on American art and industry. The exhibition examines the role played by H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, Tulane University's coordinate institution for women, in promoting art for the advancement of women and, in turn, New Orleans' business and cultural communities, which were still struggling from the effects of the Civil War.

"Women, Art, and Social Change brings together a variety of objects created during the lifespan of the Newcomb enterprise," explains Sally Main. "The finest examples of the pottery art form will be displayed alongside pieces that will come as a revelation to many-not only a rich variety of crafts but also photos and artifacts that breathe life into the Newcomb legacy."

What began as an educational experiment flourished into a quasi-commercial venture that offered unprecedented opportunities for Southern women to support themselves financially during and after their training as artists. "When seen against the backdrop of social history, which this exhibition emphasizes, these beautiful works of art and the women who made them appear even more remarkable," observes Frist Center curator Trinita Kennedy. The Frist Center's presentation will include an educational component that demonstrates production techniques employed by Newcomb potters and decorators through a series of in-progress vessels made by Nashville ceramicists Danielle McDaniel, co-owner of the Clay Lady Studios, and Lyndy Rutledge.

Many works of the Newcomb Pottery enterprise were inspired by the native flora and fauna of the Gulf South, a distinctive hallmark that made them immediately recognizable and popular with collectors, curators and tastemakers across the country. This exhibition features iconic examples of the pottery, including a majestic daffodil motif vase by Harriet Coulter Joor recently acquired by the Newcomb Art Museum, and jewelry, such as the silver and moonstone necklace attributed to Mary Williams Butler, the head of Newcomb's metalwork department, along with textiles, metalwork, bookbinding, works on paper, and other historical artifacts.

Image: Harriet Coulter Joor, decorator; Joseph Meyer, potter. Vase with daffodil design, ca. 1903. Incised; underglaze painting with glossy glaze. Newcomb Art Collection, Tulane University