Peter Shire

1947 Born Los Angeles, California

EDUCATION

1970 BFA Chouinard Art Institute (California Institute of the Arts), Los Angeles, California

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1972—Echo Park Pottery, Los Angeles, California

1980s Memphis Group

BIOGRAPHY 

Peter Shire has worked with a number of media including clay. Shire does not categorize his work into any area working in industrial design, fine art, and crafts.

References to the Bauhaus aesthetic, Italian Futurism, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco appear in his work throughout the years and media.

In the 1980s he became one of the early members of the Milan-based Memphis Group. This collection of artists and designers developed colorful unique designs that Ettore Sottsass called the ‘New International Style’ a reaction to the minimalist designs of the 1970s.

In the 1980s Shire built many of his postmodern teapots. These slab built and cast pieces use stoneware and are glazed with the very bright palette of colors that have become an iconic part of his work regardless of the media. In the 1970s he began painting with glazes on clay tiles. The subjects of these paintings are typically drawn from his Los Angeles neighborhood. He has painted more than 500 of these tiles.

Each year he produces and donates dozens of mugs decorated with spattered ultra-bright color glazes.