Harrison McIntosh

"Simplification is a basic principle of mine, and I strive to purify and strengthen an idea."

-Harrison McIntosh

Harrison McIntosh, an early figure in the history of American ceramics who helped shape the postwar crafts movement in California, maintained a quiet, consistent aesthetic throughout his career. At a time when many of his contemporaries were creating large, abstract, and expressive works in clay, McIntosh was a champion of the Mid-century Modern style of ceramics, featuring simple symmetrical forms and inspired by European modern design and Japanese pottery and aesthetics. McIntosh’s forms are subtle, elegant, and concerned with purity of form. Simply adorned with delicate surface decoration, the pieces often have a weightless quality; orbs and ovoids appear to float on small, trimmed feet or hover on wood block bases and chrome mounts.

McIntosh first studied ceramics under Glen Lukens in 1940 at the University of Southern California. After serving as a medic in World War II, McIntosh used the GI bill to study at the Claremont Graduate School with Richard Petterson from 1948 through 1952, when he began to produce the graceful wheel thrown stoneware vessels which would become his trademark. McIntosh began to incorporate the Bauhaus aesthetic into his style after working with Marguerite Wildenhain at Pond Farm during the summer of 1953. He was a colleague and friend of Peter Voulkos while teaching at Otis Art Institute in 1954. While appreciative and deeply respectful of the Abstract Expressionist revolution in clay championed by Voulkos and his students such as Paul Soldner and John Mason, McIntosh preferred to continue producing and refining the serene, classical objects that had come to define his style.

After his time at Otis, McIntosh built a studio and home in Claremont, California. In addition to his studio practice McIntosh held design positions at multiple mass manufacturing companies, including designing giftware prototypes at Metlox Manufacturing Company, tiles for Interpace International Pipe and Ceramics Corporation, and dinnerware and glassware collections for Mikasa with his wife, Marguerite.

Works by Harrison McIntosh have been exhibited worldwide and are held in numerous public collections, including the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Decorative Arts, The Louvre, Paris; National Museum of Art, Tokyo;  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA; and the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA.