The Dictionary of American Ceramics, 1945 onward
Dictionary of American Ceramics, 1945 onward
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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
BIOGRAPHY
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.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas
Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Clayarch Gimhae Museum, Gimhae, South Korea
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania
Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC
Stedelijk Museum s’Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clark, Garth. American Potters, the Work of Twenty Masters. New York: Watson Guptil Publishers, 1981.
_________ . American Ceramics, 1876 to the Present. New York: Abbeville Press, 2000.
Dietz, Ulysses Grant. Great Pots Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy. Newark, NJ: Guild Publishers/The Newark Museum, 2003.
Dormer, Peter. The New Ceramics: Trends and Traditions. London: Thames & Hudson, 1986.
Fine, Ruth. William Daley: Ceramic Artist. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2013.
Levin, Elaine. The History of American Ceramics: From Pipkins and Bean Pots to Contemporary Forms, 1607 to the Present. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1988.
Nelson, Glen C. and Richard Burkett. Ceramics: A Potters Handbook. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2001.
CV or RESUME: Click Here to Download
Source: Artist
WEBSITE(S):
Materials: Stoneware
Method: Thrown and Altered, Hand-Built
Surface Technique: Unglazed
Citation: "The Marks Project." Last modified August 7, 2023. http://www.themarksproject.org/marks/daley
