William Wyman

1922Born Boston, Massachusetts

1980Died

EDUCATION

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

1951MA Columbia University, New York, New York

1953New York State College of Art, Alfred University, Alfred, New York

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

— Ceramic Professor, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

1953Studio Potter and Instructor, Scituate and East Weymouth, Massachusetts

  1962Co-Founder, Herring Run Pottery, East Weymouth, Massachusetts

BIOGRAPHY 

William Wyman is well known for a series of stoneware slab built vessels often covered with sgraffito cartoons, poems or other contemporary phrases.

William Wyman began his career as a professional potter in 1953. He and fellow potter Michael Cohen established Herring Run Pottery in 1962, where Wyman created a wide range of both functional and non-functional work.  In the 1960s Wyman dipped his smaller slab vessels in multiple glazes creating patterns of flowing colors. In 1965 after time spent in Honduras he began to create undecorated, unglazed geometric driven structures inspired by Mayan ruins which he called “Temples”.

Public Collections

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts

Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York

Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New Hampshire

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England

Bibliography

George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum. William Wyman Ceramics. Springfield, MA: George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, 1966.

Nordness, Lee. Objects: USA. New York, NY: The Viking Press, 1970.

Perry, Barbara, ed. American Ceramics: The Collection of Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, 1989.

Southern Highland Craft Guild