Join Dave Hampton for a look into Modernist Craft Organizations of the Midcentury Southwest. All across America, membership organizations formed during the postwar years of the contemporary craft movement. In the late 1950s and 1960s coverage of their exhibitions and activities filled the pages of Craft Horizons magazine and their memberships swelled to unprecedented numbers. Groups like the Arizona Designer Craftsmen and the Allied Craftsmen of San Diego managed to unify the most exciting and acclaimed craft practitioners in their respective regions. From Berta Wright, Rose and Erni Cabat, Lloyd Kiva New and Charles Loloma, to Harry Bertoia, Jackson and Ellamarie Woolley, and Svetozar and Ruth Radakovich, these crucial membership organizations brought together some of the most celebrated figures in 20th century American craft. San Diego-based curator and collector Dave Hampton will discuss the founding of the Allied Craftsmen of San Diego (est. 1946) and the Arizona Designer Craftsmen (est. 1959), and the social and aesthetic aspects that distinguished them, as well as his work researching, collecting and documenting these unique communities.
A San Diego native, Dave Hampton is engaged in the study of California’s postwar visual art and architecture community. He has worked with many artists and object makers who were active in the region during the 50s, 60s and 70s, with a particular focus on modernism and San Diego artists and craftspeople. He regularly wrote for the KPBS Culture Lust blog and often appears on KPBS radio and television in relation to San Diego’s midcentury art and architecture community. In 2012 he was presented with the Ruocco Award for innovation in the arts and architecture by the group Citizens Coordinate For Century 3.
Since his curatorial debut in 2011: SAN DIEGO’S CRAFT REVOLUTION at Mingei International Museum (part of the Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time initiative), Hampton has developed 9 major exhibitions exploring San Diego’s under-historicized creative culture during the mid-twentieth Century. These projects have contributed valuable original research and a fresh perspective to the field of Southern California art history and have yielded groundbreaking publications.
Lecture: Modernist Craft Organizations of the Midcentury Southwest