This illustrated history highlights the diversity and innovation of American ceramics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as artists responded to historical precedents and emerging modernist styles around the world Between the early 1880s and the early 1950s, pioneering American artists drew upon the rich traditions and recent innovations of European and Asian ceramics to develop new designs, decorations, and techniques. With splendid new photography, this book showcases these American interpretations of international trends, from the Arts and Crafts and Art Deco movements, through the modernism of Matisse and the Wiener Werkstatte, to abstracted, minimalist styles. Illustrations of more than 180 exemplary works-some of these never before published-accompany engaging essays by two of the foremost experts on American art pottery. The featured makers include Rookwood, Grueby, and Van Briggle potteries, as well as artists including Maija Grotell, George E. Ohr, Frederick Hurten Rhead, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Rockwell Kent, Adelaide Alsop Robineau, and Leza McVey. A vivid and accessible overview of American ceramics and ceramists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this publication reveals how diverse and global sources inspired works of astonishing ingenuity and variety by artists working in the United States. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (October 2021-October 2022)

This is a ground-breaking study of one of America's leading designers of nineteenth-century publishers' highly decorated bookbindings.This fully illustrated volume documents the life and work of Alice C. Morse. Included in this book is a biography of Morse by Grolier Club member Mindell Dubansky and two essays on her work and influence by scholars in the field of nineteenth-century decorative arts, followed by a comprehensive and lavishly illustrated survey of all the known works by the designer drawn from the personal collection of Mindell Dubansky and from the resources of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Alice C. Morse (1863-1961) was a prolific and versatile designer during the heyday of the American Decorative Arts Movement. Though her fame has waned since the early twentieth century, her work will be familiar to admirers of artist-designed publishers' bindings of the period 1890-1910. She came to prominence during the late 1880s, when a small group of exceptional American publishers began to commission artist-designers such as Morse, and her contemporaries Sarah Wyman Whitman and Margaret Armstrong, to design the covers of case bindings. The Grolier Club exhibition marked the first time since 1923 that Morse's work was displayed to the public; and this present volume is the first to collect all of Morse's book design work, as well as literary posters and other ephemeral materials relating to her work.

As treasure troves of creativity, the homes of artists reflect the intellectual worlds of their creators. Starting with the Villa Stuck in Munich-the aesthetic, conceptual cosmos and life's work of the aristocratic artist Franz von Stuck-this unique volume integrates the artist's house as a category into the international context and is the first to assign these buildings the status of major works. About twenty examples bring to life the fascination that these artistic fantasies hold for art lovers, including both existing projects and some which, although they have been lost, were of unique importance in their day and still retain their charisma. Along with paintings, sculptures, and photographs closely related to the houses, plans and models convey the correlation between art and life as well as the kind of harmony of the arts expressed in Richard Wagner's historical concept of the total work of art. Houses featured (selection): Sir John Soane's Museum, London; William Morris Red House, Bexleyheath; Louis Comfort Tiffany's Tiffany House, New York City; Mortimer Menpes's flat, London; the Fernand Khnopff Villa, Brussels; Jacques Majorelle's villa and garden, Marrakesh; Kurt Schwitters' MERZbau, Hannover; Max Ernst's house, Arizona