In the spring of 1965, a few months after an exhibit of Ruth Duckworth’s work opened at the Renaissance Society gallery in Hyde Park–her first showing in this country–the German-born ceramic artist was invited to the home of the chairman of the University of Chicago’s geophysics department.
Duckworth went on to become a professor of fine arts at U. of C., a position she held until 1977, when she began devoting herself to making art full-time. She says, “I was told right early on when I was here teaching, ‘Now when you want to settle down, don’t settle in Chicago–you have to go east or west, but forget Chicago.’ That’s what I was told. But I decided, they need somebody, don’t they? So I stayed. It turned out OK for me.”
Another of her admirers is Dolores Fortuna, who shares a home and studio with Farrell and was a student of Duckworth’s at the University of Chicago. Fortuna helped found the Fire Arts Complex, a defunct clay center in East Pilsen (with which Duckworth was affiliated), as well as the Oak Park ceramics gallery and workshop Terra Incognito before teaching at SAIC herself. “She’s had a strong influence because of her European way of thinking about clay and form. She’s had a different dialogue with art than what you find in many ceramics departments.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Despite her accomplishments, Duckworth is virtually unknown within the broader context of contemporary art. “Ruth’s work belongs more in the sculpture department than in the ceramics department,” which tends to be “defined by utility and decorative arts traditions,” says Jo Lauria, a California-based independent curator. (Three years ago Lauria organized the exhibition “Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Contemporary Ceramics, 1950-2000” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.) “But because clay is her chosen material, and ceramics remains in the margins of art history, her work has been underrecognized.”
Still, Burger would like the artist to receive more recognition for her work in Chicago. Burger has been “in discussion” with major local arts venues about launching a retrospective in late 2004 that would then travel to three other museums in the U.S. and Europe. In fact, Lauria recently left her position as LACMA’s decorative-arts curator to organize the exhibition.
A plucky 17-year-old, “not very raw but ignorant in many ways,” Duckworth enrolled in the Liverpool Art School. “I had this interview with the principal,” she recalls, “and he said, ‘Do you want to do drawing or painting or sculpture? Do you want to be an art teacher?’ I said, ‘I want to do drawing, painting, and sculpture.’ And he said, ‘You can’t do that.’ I said, ‘But Michelangelo did that.’ He said, ‘Well, you make your own timetable then.’ So I was nobody’s student, really. Nobody took me very seriously, except the drawing teacher.”
Meeting Henry Moore, England’s preeminent 20th-century sculptor, in 1950 also had an impact on Duckworth. She was inspired by Moore’s simplified, abstracted figures in stone and bronze, and, like him, was drawn to the ancient and primitive sculpture collections at the British Museum. “I just phoned up and asked, ‘Would it be all right if I came to see you?’ I wasn’t cheeky, but you have to be cheeky sometimes.” Moore said yes, and she went up to his country estate in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, about 25 miles north of London, and had tea with him and his wife, Irina. “I’d taken two or three of my stone carvings in the taxi, and he looked at them and said, ‘Quite interesting.’” In 1953–the final year of her analysis–Duckworth made her art-world debut at a London gallery, exhibiting mostly female figures rendered in wood and stone that owed a debt to Moore. Few looked; none bought.
