Clay in the Modern West: Studio Pottery in Tucson by Robert Leopardi

Event Details

Midcentury studio pottery flourished across the American West as artists and designers embraced clay as a medium for experimentation, utility, and modern expression. In Tucson and throughout the Southwest, potters developed distinctive approaches shaped by regional materials, desert landscapes, Indigenous traditions, and the broader currents of postwar American design.

Drawing on his perspective as a collector, Robert Leopardi explores the potters, designers, studios, and objects that helped define this important chapter in Western modernism. The presentation considers both well-known and lesser-known makers, placing Tucson within the larger story of studio ceramics in the American Southwest and examining how functional pottery became an important part of modern interiors and everyday life.