William Daley

1925 Born Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

2022  Died Elkins Park, Pennsylvania

EDUCATION

1950BS Art Education, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts

1952MA Art Education, Columbia University Teachers College, New York, New York

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1957-1990 Philadelphia College of Art (The University of the Arts), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

William Daley worked in stoneware using slabs and press molding to hand-build his sculptural vessels. Inspired by Glen Lukens’ unglazed vessel forms, Daley began to leave his work unglazed in an effort to emphasize the angularity of each piece. He burnished the surfaces to enhance the variations in the clay. He worked out the construction of each of his pieces by making complex drawings for each architecturally detailed sculptural piece.

Although function is not a primary consideration in his work, each object is a vessel form. Daley is known for the inner spaces of his vessels which are stepped and articulated with complex geometrical and architectural elements. The end result is an object that twists the viewer’s perception of positive and negative space as well as the concept of inside and outside.

An interview with William Daley conducted August 7 and December 2, 2004, by Helen Drutt English for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America is available at http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-william-p-daley-11897.