JACK EARL – (1934 - )
The book jacket of Lee Nordness’s Jack Earl: The Genesis and Triumphant Survival of an
Underground Ohio Artist, states: “Here is an art book…that is simultaneously the story of the
survival of a boondocks artist possessing more talent and heart and humor than he even today
knows what to do with.”1 A “storyteller in clay,” Earl has stayed close to his rural Ohio roots,
living and working for most of his life in the area of northwestern Ohio where he was born. The
figures that populate his clay kingdom also arise from this world but they are not just
representations of everyday people. Earl’s people are Middle America combined with
otherworldly, a blur between what is “real” and what is imagined, and always with humor,
whimsy, and irony mixed in. Hand-built, usually finished with paint rather than glaze, Earl takes
us into a world where the ordinary is just a bit extraordinary, where animals may take on human
qualities and humans may sprout vegetables for limbs and all bask in the affection of the man
who created them. As viewers, we do the same as we suspend our disbelief and just enjoy the
ride.
1. Lee Nordness and Jack Earl. Jack Earl: the Genesis and Triumphant Survival of an
Underground Ohio Artist. Racine, WI: Perimeter Press, 1985, book jacket, rear flap.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT – JACK EARL
“I like things that when you look at them you know they were made by people, living somewhere
in some kind of environment and having personal thoughts, personal lives, families, maybe
friends.”1
1. “Artist’s Statement.” Quoted in: Luce Foundation Center for American Art.
http://americanart.si.edu/luce/artist.cfm?key=344&artistmedia=0&object=614&subkey=1381
RESUME – JACK EARL
1934
Born, Uniopolis, OH
1956
B.A., Art Education, Bluffton College, OH
1957-1963
Public school teaching, New Bremen, OH
1964
M.A., Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
1964-1972
Instructor, Toledo Museum of Art, School of Design, Toledo, OH
1972-1978
Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
1974
Faculty Research Grant, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond,
VA
1974, 1976, 1979
Kohler Company, Artist-in-Industry program
1978-present
Studio Artist, OH
1983, 1985, 1987
1991
Grant, Ohio Council on the Arts
1988
National Endowment for the Arts Award
1990
Honorary Member, National Council on the Education of Ceramic Arts
1997
Fellow, American Craft Council, New York
BIOGRAPHY – JACK EARL
Ohio artist Jack Earl has rarely strayed from the area where he was born and which forms the
inspiration for much of his art. He was born in Uniopolis, OH, a small village in northwestern
Ohio, and received his B.A. degree in Art Education from nearby Bluffton College (also the alma
mater of ceramic artist Paul Soldner) where he worked under Russian sculptor John Klassen.
Regarding his choice of clay as his medium Earl said, “Looking back on it, when I first started
doing it, it was just what I did. I didn’t even think much about it.”1 Following his graduation he
taught in the public schools of New Bremen, OH for several years before continuing his
education at Ohio State University where he earned an M.A. degree. At Ohio State he worked
under Paul Bogatay whose interest in Japanese aesthetic influenced Earl’s work. However,
visits from such artists as Harvey Littleton, Toshiko Takaezu and particularly Peter Voulkos
opened his eyes to a much wider world of ceramic art, and Bogatay encouraged his student to
find his own voice. Upon completing his degree, Earl returned to academic life, teaching art
education and ceramics at the Toledo Museum School of Design; during his years in Toledo, he
became interested in figurative ceramics, in particular the Meissen painted porcelain figures
from the 18th and 19th centuries. These figures inspired him to create his own porcelain figures,
but unlike the aristocratic images of the Meissen ware, Earl’s figures were the people he knew
from growing up in rural Ohio and others who populated his imagination. When his figures were
exhibited in the Objects U.S.A. exhibition at the Smithsonian in 1969, he came to the attention
of the national art world.
Earl left Ohio for a few years to accept a position as Associate Professor of Art at Virginia
Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. It was during this time that the Kohler Company of
Kohler, WI, invited Earl and fellow ceramist Tom LaDousa to spend a month working at their
manufacturing facilities with the assistance of some of their employees. Their session in
August, 1974, was the inaugural one for what would become the prestigious Art-in-Industry
program. La Dousa and Earl used leather-hard finished plumbing ware as the basis for creating
ceramic sculpture; the pieces were featured in an exhibition at the end of the session. Earl
returned twice more, in 1976 and 1979. Both Kohler and the artists who have participated in
this program have benefited enormously from the interaction. “Everyone related to this project
has been changed by it,” said Earl. “This experience has changed our whole attitude toward
ceramics…Education…is the most important thing I got out of it; what can be happening at the
university level. Generally speaking, university ceramic departments are just sick or dead
compared to the life of the factory. And that’s just the basic change educationally that I can see
that needs to be made.”2 Subsequently, Earl returned to Ohio and established himself as a
studio artist, engaging in a busy schedule of exhibitions and gallery shows.
Earl’s early work was inspired by Japanese pottery, primarily porcelain functional ware. While
at the Toledo Museum School of Design he worked with plaster and porcelain, still making
vessels but sculptural work as well. His exposure to figurative work changed his direction and it
is his figurative sculptures and scenes that are considered his definitive work. His initial pieces
were double-sided relief sculptures showing scenes of everyday life. These sculptures were
hand-built low-fire white ware with cast parts added and finished with china paint (later oil
paints) rather than glaze. His work evolved to “in the round” pieces, groupings that are small
vignettes of life; later his nostalgia for old fictional icons produced a series of figures such as
Daisy May and L’il Abner. In recent years he expanded his world to include subject matter from
literature and the Bible. But it is his Middle America figures that draw the most attention. Earl
has been called “a storyteller in clay” by numerous writers in homage to such recurring
characters as Bill, with his red cap and devoted dog, said to be based on his father-in-law but
which may also have some of Earl himself in its genesis. These “ordinary” figures are anything
but, as humor and whimsy are a part of the composition. “What makes my work different is that
there’s a lot of humor in it. That’s a reflection of ordinary life. Ordinary people’s lives have a lot
of humor in them. And people respond to it.”3 Some body parts may be replaced with
vegetables, dogs become anthropomorphic, and the line between reality and fantasy is
frequently crossed and crossed again. Back-to-back sculptures often feature seemingly
unrelated scenes whose connection is very subtle. The total body of work is a reminder that
what the viewer considers “real” is many-layered and full of mystery.
Jack Earl has been the recipient of a number of awards over his long career, including three
Artist-in-Industry Grants from the Kohler Company; a National Endowment for the Arts Award;
four Ohio Council on the Arts Grants; Honorary member of the National Council on the
Education of Ceramic Arts; and Fellow of the American Craft Council. Among the public and
private collections which hold his work are the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian
Institute, Washington, DC; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; the American Crafts
Museum, NY; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
1. Quoted in: Jenny Michaud. “Ohio is Muse for Invited Artist.” Go San Angelo Standard Times
(April 18 2008.) http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/18/ohio-is-muse-for-invitedartist/?print=1
2. Jack Earl and Tom La Dousa. “Fantasy at Kohler.” Craft Horizons 34 (December 1974): 48,
76.
3. Melanie Murray. “Jack Earl Entertains the Mind.” Witmarsum 91 no. 4 (October 21 2005): 5.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY – JACK EARL
Books and Catalogs
Arneson, Robert, Judy Moonelis, et al. In Clay: Life and Times. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling
Green State University School of Art, 1989.
Baldwin, Douglas, and Jack Earl. Claythings: East Coast Invitational. Philadelphia: Moore
College of Art Gallery, 1974.
Bole, Mary Jo, George Bowes, et al. Ohio Perspectives: Explorations in Clay. Akron, OH:
Akron Art Museum, 1996.
Contemporary Clay: Master Teachers/Master Students. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green
State University, Fine Arts Center Galleries, 1999.
Earl, Jack. Jack Earl. Cullowhee, NC: Western Carolina University, 1983.
_______. Lives and Times: the Ceramic Sculpture of Jack Earl. Kansas City, MO: The Kansas
City Art Institute, 1989.
_______. Ohio Boy: the Ceramic Sculpture of Jack Earl. Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler
Arts Center, 1987.
_______. Porcelains by Jack Earl. New York: Museum of Contemporary Crafts of the
American Crafts Council, 1971.
Earl, Jack, and Bruce Pepich. Collection Focus: Jack Earl at RAM. Racine, WI: Racine Art
Museum, 2009.
Figurative Clay. Pittsburgh, PA: The Society for Contemporary Crafts, 1992.
Flynn, Michael. Ceramic Figures. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
Galusha, Emily, and Mary Ann Nord. Clay Talks: Reflections by American Master Ceramists.
Minneapolis, MN: Northern Clay Center, 2004.
Held, Peter, ed. Innovation and Change. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University Art Museum,
2009
Levin, Elaine. The History of American Ceramics 1607 to the Present. New York: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., 1988.
Nordness, Lee, and Jack Earl. Jack Earl: the Genesis and Triumphant Survival of an
Underground Ohio Artist. Racine, WI: Perimeter Press, 1985.
Three Masters: Roy De Forest, Jack Earl and Richard Shaw. Cambridge, MA: Mobilia Gallery,
2003.
30 American Sculptors. Davis, CA: John Natsoulas Press, 2008.
Umberger, Leslie, and Tom Patterson. American Story. Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler
Arts Center, 2009.
Viewpoint Ceramics 1980. El Cajon, CA: Grossmont College, 1981.
Periodicals
Baker, R. Clayton. “Kohler Experiment.” Ceramics Monthly 23 (January 1975): 17-21.
Berman, Rick. “Jack Earl.” Ceramics Monthly 40 (June/August 1992): 50-53.
Boettger, Suzaan. “Jack Earl at the American Craft Museum.” Art in America 76 (April 1988):
212.
Bourdon, D. “Theo Portnoy Gallery, NY; Exhibit.” Art in America 66 (November/December
1978): 155.
Buchanan, Bill. “{Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC; Exhibit.}” Ceramics Monthly 32
(May 1984): 31-33.
Cohen, Ronny H. “Jack Earl.” American Craft 45 (August/September 1985): 18-23.
Cullum, Jerry. “{ArtSpace, Atlanta; Exhibit.}” American Ceramics 9 no. 4 (1991): 49.
Earl, Jack Eugene. “Eighteen Ceramic Artists.” Studio Potter 16 (December 1987): 9-10.
Earl, Jack, and Tom La Dousa. “Fantasy at Kohler.” Craft Horizons 34 (December 1974): 4448+.
Fariello, Anna. “{Olin Gallery, Roanoke College, Salem, VA; Exhibit.}” New Art Examiner 19
(May 1992): 42-43.
Gallia, Angela. “Ohio’s Jack Earl.” Ceramics Monthly 47 no. 3 (March 1999): 49.
Henry, Gerrit. “{Theo Portnoy Gallery, NY; Exhibit.}” ARTnews 84 (September 1985): 140-141.
“Jack Earl.” Ceramics Monthly 55 no. 10 (December 2007): 22, 24.
Kaminsky, Christine. “Fantasy at Kohler.” American Craft 69 no. 2 (April/May 2009): 80.
Kiefer, Geraldine. W. “Jack Earl.” Arts Magazine 56 (January 1982): 13.
Klassen, J. “Conversation with Jack Earl.” Ceramics Monthly 29 (October 1981): 68-70.
“Lee Nordness Selects.” Craft Horizons 32 (August 1972): 52.
Naisse, Andy. “Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL; Exhibit.” Craft Horizons 34 (April 1974): 50.
Rothman, Ann. “Jack Earl.” American Ceramics 12 no. 2 (1996): 50.
Schanberg, Jessica. “{American Craft Museum, NY; Exhibit.}” Craft International 6 no. 4
(1988): 41.
“Theo Portnoy Gallery, NY; Exhibit.” Arts Magazine 53 (June 1979): 39-40.
Video and Other Media
“Clay Figures, Animals and Landscapes.” American Craft Museum, n.d. VHS
“Clayworks.” American Craft Museum. n.d. VHS
GALLERY REPRESENTATION – JACK EARL
Mobilia Gallery, 358 Huron Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Nancy Margolis Gallery, 523 W. 25th Street, New York, NY 10001
Perimeter Gallery, 210 W. Superior Street, Chicago, IL 60610
Sherrie Gallerie, 694 North High Street, Columbus, OH 43215
WEB SITES – JACK EARL
http://americanart.si.edu/luce/artist.cfm?key=344&artistmedia=0&object=614&subkey=1381
Web site of Luce Foundation Center for American Art. Brief biography of Earl with link to Dear
Fay… in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
http://www.samfa.org/ncc-08-inivted-artist.htm
San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts; biography of Jack Earl
http://www.sherriegallerie.com/artistprofile.php?artist=18
Sherrie Gallerie site for Jack Earl with resume
http://www.perimetergallery.com/exhibits/exhibit.html?serial=3252492122601377
Jack Earl pages on Perimeter Gallery web site
http://nancymargolisgallery.com/?tag=jack-earl
Resume, images for Jack Earl on Nancy Margolis Gallery web site
http://www.mobilia-gallery.com/artists/jackearl/jackearl.html
Jack Earl page on Mobilia Gallery web site
http://www.ramart.org/ram/Jack-Earl.html
Racine Art Museum article on Jack Earl
http://www.bluffton.edu/witmarsum/pdf/oct212005.pdf
Article on Earl in Bluffton College newsletter (page 5)
February 2010