Artwork by Viola Frey Gods & Monsters Artwork by Viola Frey

GODS & MONSTERS ARTWORK BY VIOLA FREY GODS & MONSTERS ARTWORK BY VIOLA FREY

American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC

Curated by Squeak Carnwath GODS & MONSTERS: The Early Work of Viola Frey

By Mark Van Proyen

Beginnings are delicate and hard to know, simply because there is always an earlier origin that pre-exists and bears upon any moment of presumed origination. As is the case with every artist’s career, this observation is borne out by the story of Viola Frey (1933–2004) as a painter and ceramic sculptor. Frey herself would say that she began her professional artistic career when she dug out the basement in her Divisadero home in San Francisco to house an art studio—four years after her return to California, and before that, four more years split between New Orleans and New York. But that beginning had its own complex pre-history reaching further back in time, and Frey’s pre-history is echoed and reflected in much of the work that she created up until her death in 2004, even after she suffered a series of debilitating strokes.

Viola Frey, Ming Blue and White, 1981. Oil and acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0327WP. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

2 3 Frey was born in 1933 and grew up on a family-run grape farm in Lodi, an apartment at 495 Francisco Street, which was very close to the mediagenic heart of California. Following high school, she attended Stockton College, and the Beatnik subculture that had gained international attention after the controversial then went on to the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) from reading of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl at the Six Gallery in late 1955. 1953 to 1955, studying painting with Richard Diebenkorn and ceramics with Charles Fiske and Vernon “Corky” Coykendall. After completing From 1961 to 1970, she worked in the billing department of Macy’s Department Store, her BFA and at Coykendall’s behest, she entered the Graduate School at and in 1964 Frey secured a part-time position at CCAC while also having some success Tulane University to study art, but left just before finishing to join Tulane exhibiting and occasionally selling her work. In 1963, she and Fiske rented a house ceramics instructor Katherine Choy, to make experimental sculpture at 1336 Divisadero, and in 1965, Frey purchased the house across the street (1335 at Choy’s newly founded Clay Art Center at Port Chester, New York.1 Divisadero), where she and Fiske lived until 1975. It was here that Frey converted the Since the center was a commutable train journey to Manhattan and she basement to construct her first professional studio space, which was outfitted with a needed employment to continue her artistic pursuits, Frey took a job in small kiln, allowing her to fire pottery and hand-built clay objects up to about 24 inches the business department of the Museum of Modern Art. in any dimension. Having this dedicated space allowed her to work free of the distrac- tions that came along with using the communal studio at CCAC. Here, we may want to remember a few things: first of which, Frey had ample exposure to legions of “organization men” clad in almost identical During the time that Frey and Fiske lived in the Divisadero neighborhood, they witnessed power suits, no doubt influencing her repeated use of the men-in-suits its rapid decline into a downward spiral of urban blight. Using money that Frey inher- motif in later works. Second, her job at the museum also afforded first- ited after her father passed away, she bought a house in Oakland in 1974, where she hand familiarity with the masterworks in that museum’s collection—in and Fiske would live the rest of their lives.4 In the back yard of the Oakland home, Frey particular, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon (1907), and Girl Before immediately set to work building a dedicated ceramic studio that, when finally finished Viola Frey in Port Chester, New York, c. 1958–1959. a Mirror (1932)—echoes of which can be seen in many of Frey’s later Viola Frey Archives, Artists’ Legacy Foundation. in 1977, would become the place where she would embark upon the initial creation of figures executed in both two and three dimensions. The fact that Frey her impressive series of life-sized polychrome figures—the most well-known being the was there during the period of Peter Selz’s landmark 1959 exhibition, New Images of almost life-size grandmothers (fig. 2). Man, is particularly relevant.2 In this exhibition were paintings by her former CCAC painting instructors Richard Diebenkorn and Nathan Oliveira, hung alongside other Having Charles Fiske as a housemate was helpful in developing Frey’s early career. works by Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, and others—all of which Curator Anita Ellis wrote, “Dealers soon noticed that to please Charles was to please were redolent with indications of psychological trauma and heavy existential emotion. Viola. Fiske became Viola’s de facto gatekeeper.” Fiske was a gay man almost two decades older than Frey, described as an “intellectual” and a “borderline genius mad- Frey cited several reasons for leaving New York and returning to California: the sudden man.” In addition, the move to Oakland made sense as both he and Frey were teaching untimely death of her friend Katherine Choy; the harsh New England winters; and the at CCAC (she part-time until 1970 and full time after that until her retirement in 1999; rise of figuration in the California Bay Area.3 Even in her school years, Frey showed an he intermittently from 1965 to 1998). It is easy to imagine that, for the purposes of early interest in the figure, and she felt that San Francisco offered a more hospitable and social convenience, their cohabitation might have seemed to outside observers as being sympathetic environment for figurative art than did the East Coast. So, in 1961, she took something akin to a conventional marriage.

4 5 After gaining notoriety from her first retrospective organized by the Creative Arts League and initially exhibited at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, and traveling to Oakland Museum in 1981, Frey again relocated her art studio to a large warehouse at 1089 Third Street in West Oakland, which afforded her the space to produce and store figurative ceramic sculpture that were much larger than life sized. This later body of sumptuously glazed and ebulliently colored work forms the basis of the international reputation that Frey’s work still enjoys, following in the wake of her highly successful survey exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1984. But it is the work that foreshadowed those later figures that is of interest here. Figure 1. Viola Frey, Dancing Monster Head, 1977. Ceramic and glazes, 25 1/2 x 25 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0107P. Artists’ Legacy Many factors come to bear when we examine the sculpture that Frey Foundation, Oakland, CA. created at the Divisadero studio during the decade beginning in 1965, and in the half-decade immediately after her departure from it. For convenience sake, we might point to several specific bodies of work, but in so doing, we need to recognize that in many cases, some of these are better understood as hybrid combinations of multiple tendencies. The

Figure 3. Viola Frey, Untitled (Wall Hanging of Female Figure), earliest of these are several stoneware variations on the theme of plates 1965. Ceramic and glazes, 15 3/4 x 10 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. ALF and vessels, showing a penchant for subtle, minimally applied glazes no. VF-0063P. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. that accentuate and reveal the earthen color and texture of clay—a very different approach to treating ceramic surfaces than the manner which was used in the post-1977 figures. An early work, Untitled (Wall Hanging of Female Figure) (fig. 3), provides us with some additional clues, as it is among the earliest of Frey’s ceramic figurative works. It was designed to hang on a wall in the manner of a crucifix but is morphologically related to pre-Christian sources, those being Goddess figurines from the second, third and fourth millennia BCE, which we may now associate with Cycladic idols, or the Venus of Willendorf. During the 1970s, the archeological discover- ies of Marija Gimbutas gained the attention of popular media, illuminating her hypoth- Figure 2. Viola Frey, Untitled (Grandmother Series), 1978. Ceramic and glazes, 70 x 22 1/2 esis of a widespread matriarchal culture existing in southeastern Europe thousands of x 23 in. ALF no. VF-3109CS. Collection of di years prior to the age of recorded history.5 This idea exerted a significant influence on Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. many female American artists working in the 1970s (Nancy Spero, Judy Chicago, and

6 7 Ana Mendieta to name a few), and seems to have either directly or indirectly influ- enced Frey—possibly by way of the bookwormish Fiske.

Another kindred work from the Divisadero period is a rather frightening variation of a portrait bust titled A Visually Haunted Image (fig. 4), which shows a disfigured face that seems to have been violently removed from the front of a head and placed on a striped vessel fragment in the manner of some macabre trophy. Yet another work evoking Neolithic idolatry is titled Untitled (Desert Figure Model) (fig. 5). It seems to have been started as an abortive attempt to make a vessel of some kind, gaining new life as a male figure with a cylindrical head and no arms. It too is minimally glazed, featuring ominous dark circles around the figure’s empty eyes, suggesting a helpless anguish in the face of uncontrollable tragedy—possibly reflecting a distressed state of mind. Still another work that conveys a similar sense of trauma is Untitled (Female Figure Model) (fig. 6), showing an armless and legless female figure looking back at the viewer with a facial expression of terror and grief. An ominous torn hole is plainly visible at the figure’s lower abdomen, inviting a range of psychological interpretations pertaining to real or imagined violation.

Other works from this period include rather small works, treated with minimal glazing and almost all flirting with grotesque and occasionally terrifying attributes, are central in a series of photographs also taken during the 1970s. The photographs are from the period when her Oakland ceramic studio was under construction, and they show small, quickly improvised figures and figure group- ings, sometimes positioned inside of what appears to be a bird cage, providing a Figure 5. Viola Frey, Untitled surrounding grid, suggesting that those works may have been intended to be trial (Desert Figure Model), 1974. Ceramic and slip, 15 1/2 x 4 x 3 sketches or maquettes that could later be proportionally scaled-up into larger in. ALF no. VF-0075CSS. Artists’ productions. Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. In any event, we can note that many of Frey’s early works from the 1969 to 1977 Opposite: Figure 4. Viola Frey, A Visually Haunting Image, 1968. period reach back to the pre-historical point where it is impossible to distinguish Ceramic, glazes, and silver leaf, between sculpture and ritual objects, carrying intimations of the joys and terrors 14 1/2 x 15 x 15 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0220CSS. Artists’ Legacy that haunt the world of tribal peoples or very young children, simply and eloquently Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

8 9 located in the interstitial space between archaic impulse and worldly In 1967, Peter Selz organized another exhibition recognition. They bespeak an emphasis on the haptic side of the hap- that would have a consequential effect on Frey’s tic-visual continuum, experienced at the point of where infantile sen- subsequent artistic development. The exhibition, sation initially re-forms itself into world-awareness, that being the titled Funk, was installed at Berkeley Art Museum same point where fetish objects could be thought to have magical and featured the work of 26 Bay Area artists, capacities for influencing an uncontrollable world.6 More obliquely, almost all of whom were of the same general age they also bespeak the emotional temperature of many of the works as Frey. Frey herself was not included, but the exhi- that were exhibited in Selz’s New Images of Man exhibition, testifying bition did bring international attention to Northern to their lingering influence. California art, defining what turned out to be a prominent regional style that emphasized an irrev- The armless male figure motif turns up again in a work titled Father erent, ironic, and zany approach to the relations Figure 6. Viola Frey, Untitled (Female Figure Model), Doll (Shadow Box Figure) (fig. 7), which is shown as part of a quartet 1975–1976. Ceramic and slip, 10 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 6 in. ALF no. of materials and the meanings inherent to them. of wall sculptures recalling Voodoo dolls. In this example, it is given VF-0204CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. a necktie, work boots, and blue denim pants with upturned cuffs, no Selz’s Funk exhibition also featured ceramic sculp- doubt reflecting recollections of Frey’s earlier life growing up on a ture by Peter Voulkos and Robert Arneson, among California farm, and quite possibly echoing a memory of her father, others; these two named artists being influential with whom she seemed to have had a troubled relationship.7 In the colleagues during this period. In fact, the Funk case of a later Untitled (Oval Head, Hat, Leaf Hands) (fig. 8), we might exhibition represented the precise moment when also detect the distant presence of Frey’s paternal grandmother, clay had at long last achieved full legitimation as who, as the domineering matriarch ran the family’s grape farming a medium for sculpture, providing serviceable business, was an important figure in her life, casting Frey’s father grist for Selz’s assertion of a “hot” anti-minimal- as a subordinate ranch hand who filled his time amassing a large ist esthetic elaborating and expanding on surre- collection of odd bits of machinery. No doubt, from her grandmother, alist principles representing the preferable path

Frey learned the basics of keeping financial records, thereby devel- Figure 8. Viola Frey, Untitled (Oval Head, Hat, Leaf Hands), 1979. Ceramic for the future of American art. As Selz wrote, “the oping a marketable skill by which she could earn a living during an and glazes, 60 1/2 x 25 x 14 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0448CSS. Artists’ Legacy imagery, the attitude, the feeling remains funky Foundation, Oakland, CA. era when it was very difficult for any woman to be financially inde- just the same: the same attitude of irony and wit, pendent from the male domination of the workforce. But from her the delight in the visual pun, the same spirit of irreverence and absurdity prevail, even father, Frey inherited the collecting habit, only in her case it was for when dexterity and careful workmanship are more apparent.”8 To put it another way, it mass-produced ceramic figurines that she acquired from her regular was the implicit mutability of materials such as clay or paint that was upheld to be their visits to the Alameda flea market. Over the years, Frey would amass essential characteristic, forcing attention away from the radically anti-subjectivist proc- hundreds of these figurines, and these played important roles in the lamations of Minimalism’s “essential” conjugations of cold situation and sheer materi- Figure 7. Viola Frey, Father Doll, Shadow Box Figures development of her work, both as material and as subject matter. Series, 1977. Ceramic and glazes, 23 1/2 x 9 x 6 1/2 ality. In so doing, Funk refocused attention on the attributes of the artist’s personality as in. ALF no. VF-0327CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

10 11 representing another kind of material that could be put into artistic motion, working with the possibilities of a libidinous play with abject materials and perverse significations.

The wide-ranging influence of the Funk exhibition is felt to greater or lesser extent in many of Frey’s works from the 1969–1982 years, but amid that influence there can be found a multiplicity of variations. Several of these take the form of Surrealistic juxtapo- sitions of improbable elements, as is the case with Grandmother’s Teacup (fig. 9), which shows a topsy-turvy arrangement of various elements such as a Japanese fan and a reclining angel. Only instead of using them as found objects, Frey worked with ceramic slip-casts of the objects, and subsequently conjoined and treated them with layered glazes. It is worth noting that, during those years, Frey became ever more adventurous in the way that she applied glazes and other surface treatments to her work, developing an evermore complex vocabulary of underglazes, overglazes, and china painting. When these works are examined as a chronological group, we can see the steady, step-by-step development toward greater complexity and sophistication.

Perhaps the most intensely personal works from this period are a pair of paintings called Untitled (Construction with Monster Face, Horse on Ledge) (c. 1979–1981), and Untitled (Construction with Monster Face, Figurines) (fig. 10), both of which are executed in thick oil paint on the backside of premade canvas supports. At first glance, they look like a chaotic painter’s palette: a layered amalgamation of thick pigment, some muted and some stunningly colorful. But in both cases, closer inspection reveals the presence of an anguished face, a veritable howl of fear and pain emerging from a cloud of visual chaos that threatens to devour some adjacent figurines. Similar faces are revealed on the surfaces of large plates that Frey made in later years (1977–1982), which can be most profitably understood as pictorial reliefs executed on tondo surfaces—the earlier ones revealing minimal glazing while later examples sporting more elaborate surface treatments.

Figure 9. Viola Frey, Grandmother’s One body of sculptures from 1979, The Phobia Series, most clearly bespeaks the influ- Teacup, 1978. Ceramic and glazes, ence of Funk esthetics on Frey’s work. At a cursory glance, they seem like fantasies on 25 x 15 1/2 x 14 3/4 in. without base. ALF no. VF-0012CSS. Artists’ the theme of indoor plumbing gone horribly awry, primarily white with yellow and black Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

12 13 accents that articulate cartoonish faces express- other figurines. In the case of both of these works, there is a variety of richly colored ing startled emotions. In some ways, these works glazes emphasizing a painterly consideration of sculptural form. Again, the emphasis refer back to the monstrous emotionalism of on manic amalgamation and surrealist juxtaposition is revealed, both being attributes earlier works, but they also bring a mordant that echoed the improvisatory esthetics of the Funk movement. humor into the equation, inviting the Nietzschean observation pertaining to life being a tragedy for Gradually, as Frey’s work attained greater thresholds those that feel and a comedy for those that think. of public acclaim, the intensely personal “haptic” They also seem to bear some relation to some of aspects of her work become less visible, but they the scatological work that Arneson had exhibited never completely vanish. Rather, they are strategically a few years earlier, even though he had gone on submerged, muted, and sublimated, always lurking to make variations on the theme of self-portraits below the works’ lustrous surfaces, but never so by that point. Concurrently in the late 1970s, Frey far as to be unseen. This was certainly true in what was starting to explore quasi-realistic portraiture could be called her “realist/surrealist” phase (roughly in her Grandmother series, which turned out to 1975–1983, including her grandmother and bricolage be the pivotal works that led to her heroically sculptures), where haptic operations were balanced scaled figures. with a new emphasis on clear visual detail, formal complexity, and imaginative elaboration. Frey’s longstanding enthusiasm for collecting small figurines found its own voice in other It must be stated that Frey would dispute some or sculptural work called bricolages, or junk all of these assertions, and in fact she has done sculptures, which she began making from about so by consistently re-emphasizing in her autobi- 1977 and continued until the time of her death. ographical sources and various recorded interviews.9 These bricolages become elaborate amalgama- Nonetheless, the unavoidable fact is that, to make tions of glazed slip-casts of the small figurines heroically scaled figurative sculpture is to invoke a attached to other hand-built objects, usually classical tradition reaching back to the Greek golden utilizing several layers of surface treatments. In age—even if the effort is only to mock or undermine Untitled (Bricolage Bust with Fan Nose and Elbow Figure 10. Viola Frey, Untitled (Construction with Monster Face, Figurines), c. 1979– 1981. Mixed media, 29 1/2 x 18 x 5 in. ALF no. VF-0185PT. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, it, or to use it as a point of departure—artistic avow- on Pitcher) (fig. 11), in another nod to Picasso, a Oakland, CA. als notwithstanding. However, an important part of Cubist face seems to be devouring the upper part invoking Frey’s legacy is to also invoke an understand- of an ambiguously gendered figure, which is being pushed up by large arms tipped with ing of her own pre-history, represented by the kind casts of the artist’s hands. Near the base, we see a small pitcher set atop what seems of archaic, pre-Dorian figurative sculpture of which Figure 11. Viola Frey, Untitled (Bricolage Bust with Fan Nose and to be a chamber pot, while the upper part of the face is formed from fragments from Elbow on Pitcher), c. 1981. Ceramic and glazes, 38 x 18 x 15 in. served as an initial, “magical” germination. ALF no. VF-0603CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

14 15 We also have to note that the autobiographical aspects of Frey’s work are never far from Endnotes their symbolic surfaces, and they are almost always given pride of place in the extant 1. My primary source for information about biographical details for Viola Frey and Charles Fiske’s life is Anita J. Ellis, Viola Frey: The Fine Art literature about her career. But the important point is that, before autobiography we of Ceramic Sculpture (Unpublished Manuscript, 2007, courtesy of Artists’ Legacy Foundation, all rights reserved). All biographical refer- have psychobiography, and the early work in this exhibition reveals a deep psycholog- ences are from this source, unless otherwise noted. In that text, Neil Williams is quoted as saying “We all know that Charles (Fiske) was the suited man.” (p. 23). ical narrative of anguish, doubt, and longing, thus exerting a latent gravitational pull 2. See Peter Selz, New Images of Man (Museum of Modern Art, 1959). At the point of Jackson Pollock’s death in 1956, and in the context of on the later work, as manifested by the revelation of an awkward paralysis of affect, as the Red Scare of the 1950s, many in the New York art world were asking the question pertaining to what would happen after Abstract revealed by the later figures’ quizzical and palsied stoicism. Very often, the best exam- Expressionism had run its course. Selz’s exhibition was an attempt to answer that question through the optics of then-popular existential- ist philosophy and his own long-standing interest in pre-war German Expressionism. But as the history of the ensuing decade demon- ples of the later works reach through and beyond autobiographical references, refresh- strated, it was Pop Art that would end up answering that question. Nonetheless, the exhibition did make a compelling and controversial ing, and animating what it means to represent a fully embodied human figure in all of case for the resurgent importance of figuration at the end of the Abstract Expressionist 1950s. 3. its contradictory self-doubt. We should always remember that the creation of Frey’s Regarding Choy’s death, Frey was quoted as saying: “So she had a full-fledged wedding, Chinese/Caucasian. And then she had a full- fledged funeral, Chinese/Caucasian. And we all felt that it was suicide, because by that time they were living apart. She told me, ‘What heroically scaled figures was undertaken as a result of her pre-history beginnings, in are we supposed to do?’ She said, ‘It’s just so boring just to sit in a room and just stare at each other.’” She was talking about her husband. And so Dr. Koo, who was a well-known Chinese scholar in New York City, told me, he said, ‘Well, at least we saved one of them.’” (Quoted a mass-mediated world where the conditions of selfhood so dramatically represented in Paul J. Karlstrom, Oral History interview with Viola Frey, Archives of American Art, 1995. by them, are set against overwhelming forces of social regimentation, encouraging 4. See Davira Taragin’s essay, “Viola Frey: Everything is Autobiographical,” in Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey, (Racine, WI: Racine Art psychological disembodiment at every turn. Museum, 2009). 5. See Gimbutas, Op. Cit. 13. “European civilization between 6500 and 3500 BC was not a provincial reflection of Near Eastern civilization… but had developed independent agricultural economies prior to the Kurgan invasions of the 4th millennium (BCE).” Amongst the archeological evidence of these “Old Europe” cultures, we can take note of a great many small figurines made of fired clay and carved stone, almost all female: “The ‘Fertility Goddess’ or ‘Mother Goddess’ is a more complex image than most people think. It was not only the Mother Goddess who commands fertility, or the Lady of The Beasts who governs the fecundity of animals and all wild nature, or the frightening Mother Terrible, but a composite image with traits accumulated from both pre-agricultural and agricultural eras… She was the giver of life and at the same time she was the wielder of the destructive power of nature, like the moon is light as well as dark.” Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), 152. 6. The haptic/visual scale is at the core of an influential theory of art education originally published in 1947 by Viktor Lowenfeld and W. Lambert Britten titled Creative and Mental Growth (New York: Macmillan, 1965. 267.): “Visual Space, for which our eyes are the intermediaries, we perceive as the widest space. Haptic space, for which our organs of touch and our bodily sensations are the intermediaries, is the most restricted. Both spaces achieve a magical significance whenever the self is included within them through value judgments.” It is of interest that this passage is from a chapter titled “The Period of Decision: The Crisis of Adolescence.” 7. “Father really only cared about machinery and growing things…he liked strangers better than people who knew him too well.” (Frey quoted in Lesley Wenger, “Viola Frey Interview,” Currants 1, August 1975. 38.) She also remembers an awkward moment at her father’s 1973 funeral, when she and Fiske were not allowed to sit in the back of the church and were instead pressured to sit with the rest of the family. (see Fiske papers archive, courtesy of Artists’ Legacy Foundation). For additional background on Frey’s early family experiences, see Garth Clark, “Cracks in the Sidewalk: A Chronological Study of the Art and World of Viola Frey.” In Viola Frey Retrospective, (Sacramento: Crocker Art Museum, 1981). 8. Peter Selz, “Notes on Funk,” in Funk (Berkeley: University Art Museum, 1967), 6. 9. See Clark, Op.Cit. 9. “…Frey was asked about scale in her work, particularly the figures. The questioner assumed heroic intent, but Frey explained that her height was almost exactly that of the grapevines and so, for the first sixteen years of her life on the farm, she saw little more than the first row of vines. Many of her pieces, therefore, were not searching for monumental scale, but were simply trying, metaphorically at least, to gaze over and beyond the grapevines.”

16 17 Viola Frey, Untitled (Figure with Raised Arms), c. 1975–1980. Ceramic and slip, 16 1/2 x 8 x 7 in. ALF no. VF-0343CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. Opposite: Viola Frey, Untitled (Small Pitcher with Face), c. 1978–1979. Ceramic and slip, 2 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 3 3/4 in. ALF no. VF-0125CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

18 19 Viola Frey, Untitled (Frowning Vessel Face), c. 1975–1980. Ceramic and slip, 11 1/2 x 12 x 6 in. ALF no. VF-0337CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

Viola Frey, Untitled (Smiling Vessel Face), c. 1975–1980. Ceramic and slip, 7 x 12 x 12 in. ALF no. VF-0335CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

Opposite: Viola Frey, Untitled (Vessel, Hand, Head), c. 1975–1980. Ceramic and slip, 13 x 13 x 11 in. ALF no. VF-0339CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

20 21 Clockwise (from top left): Viola Frey, Untitled (Bear Head), 1976. Ceramic and slip, 6 3/4 x 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0634CSS; Untitled (Face), c. 1975–1977. Ceramic and slip, 4 x 8 x 9 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0094CSS; Untitled (Amorphous Collapsed Pot with Face), c. 1975–1977. Ceramic and slip, 5 x 9 x 8 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0131CSS; Untitled (Small Abstract Desert Face with Horns), c. 1975–1980. Ceramic, 5 1/4 x 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 in. ALF no. VF- 0365CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. All photographed by M. Lee Fatherree. Opposite: Viola Frey, Untitled (Animal Personage Model), 1975. Ceramic and slip, 12 x 6 x 5 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0076CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

22 23 Viola Frey, Untitled (Bust with Gray Hat), c. 1974–1976. Ceramic and glazes, 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 6 in. ALF no. VF-0124CSS. Artists’ Legacy Viola Frey, Untitled (Head in Hat), c. 1975–1980. Ceramic and slip, 12 x 9 x 8 in. ALF no. VF-0346CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

24 25 Viola Frey, Phobia: Monster Head Don’t Die Yet, 1979. Ceramic Viola Frey, Untitled (Phobia with Hands to Mouth), 1979. and glazes, 25 x 14 x 12 in. ALF no. VF-0319CSS. Artists’ Legacy Ceramic and glazes, 26 x 15 x 12 in. ALF no. VF-0309CSS. Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

Viola Frey, Phobia: Monster Head Don’t Shout, 1979. Ceramic and glazes, 25 x 14 x 12 in. ALF no. VF-0320CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

26 27 Viola Frey, Goggle Eyes, 1979–1980. Ceramic and glazes, 30 x 13 1/2 x 14 in. ALF no. VF-0027CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Viola Frey, Fundamentally Undomesticated Reconstruction, c. 1977–1980. Ceramic and Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. glazes, 73 x 24 x 32 in. ALF no. VF-0039CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

28 29 Viola Frey, Untitled (White Face, Black Hand and Eye), 1980. Oil and acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0333WP. Viola Frey, Untitled (Blue Hands, Hat of Figurines), Greedy Grandmother Series, 1980. Oil and acrylic on paper, 30 x Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree. 22 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0330WP. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

30 31 Clockwise (from top left): Viola Frey, Untitled (Slide 345), 1975, scanned 35mm slide; Untitled (Slide 139), 1975 scanned 35mm slide; Untitled (Slide 341), 1975, scanned 35mm slide; Untitled (Slide 361), 1975, scanned 35mm slide; Untitled (Slide 355), 1975, scanned 35mm slide; Untitled (Slide 344), 1975, scanned 35mm slide. Viola Frey Archives, Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

Viola Frey, Doll on Grid #9, Shadow Box Figures Series, 1976–1977. Ceramic and glazes, 28 1/2 x 18 x 5 in. ALF no. VF-0325CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

32 33 VIOLA FREY BIOGRAPHY

Over the course of her five-decade As a result, Viola Frey shifted between career, Viola Frey (1933–2004) produced two-dimensional and three-dimen- an impressive body of artwork, including sional artworks with ease, and she often paintings, drawings, bronze, and glass— explored myriad themes simultaneously, but she is perhaps best known for her all of which built her visual language. Her ceramic sculpture. Frey was obsessively iconography included suited men, hands, devoted to her practice and produced and cast figurines, among many others. thousands of artworks during her lifetime. Plates served as a canvas, upon which she built narratives, and bricolage sculptures From early on, Frey was aware of the were assembled with molded objects division between craft and fine art. When from her figurine collection to create new she enrolled at California College of Arts meaning. Throughout her work, she used and Crafts (CCAC) in 1953, she majored light, color, and scale to evoke emotion. in painting, studying under Richard Diebenkorn, so she could be taken seri- In 1984, Frey’s artwork was exhibited at ously as an artist. Ceramics was not the Whitney Museum of American Art, considered a fine art at this time, yet she which showcased larger-than-life figures gravitated to the ceramics department, alongside plates, bricolages, and paint- because, as she put it, it “had people of ings. Curator Patterson Sims wrote, “Clay all ages in it. It seemed more like the real has traditionally been associated with world. It was a community.” craft rather than with fine art in America, so that Viola Frey, who works primarily in

Opposite: Viola Frey with flea market finds, drawings, and sculptures in her Oakland Avenue painting and drawing studio, Oakland, California, 1980. Photograph by Kurt Edward Fishback.

34 35 EXHIBITION CHECKLIST

Grandmother’s Teacup, Untitled (Face), c. 1975–1977, Doll on Grid #11, Shadow 1978, ceramic and glazes, ceramic and slip, 4 x 8 x Box Figures Series, 1977, 25 x 15 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches 9 1/2 inches, ALF no. VF- ceramic and glazes, 5 3/4 x without base, ALF no. 0094CSS. 19 1/2 x 25 inches, ALF no. VF-0012CSS. VF-0143CSS. Dancing Monster Head, 1977, Goggle Eyes, 1979–1980, ceramic and glazes, 25 1/2 Untitled (Dragon and Half ceramic and glazes, 30 x x 25 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF Moon), 1982, ceramic and 13 1/2 x 14 inches without no. VF-0107P. glazes, 25 x 25 x 4 inches, base, ALF no. VF-0027CSS. ALF no. VF-0156P. Untitled (Horse with Hand), Fundamentally 1980, ceramic and glazes, Untitled (White Oval Head Undomesticated 20 1/2 x 20 1/2 x 2 3/4 and White Gloves), 1979, Ceramic sculptures on view outside Viola Frey’s Oakland Avenue studio, Oakland, CA, c. 1980–1983. Reconstruction, c. 1977– inches, ALF no. VF-0119P. ceramic and glazes, 24 3/4 1980, ceramic and glazes, x 24 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches, 73 x 24 x 32 inches, Untitled (Bust with Gray ALF no. VF-0159P. ceramic, has not received full recognition Her work is in numerous public and pri- ALF no. VF-0039CSS. Hat), c. 1974–1976, ceramic as a serious sculptor and painter. In fact, vate collections worldwide, including and glazes, 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 Untitled (Rabbit Head), 1977, clay is but one of the media Frey employs the Stedelijk Museum‘s-Hertogenbosch, Untitled (Desert Figure x 6 inches, ALF no. VF- ceramic and glazes, 19 3/4 Model), 1974, ceramic and 0124CSS. x 19 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches, ALF and it is only the starting point for her cre- Netherlands; Hirshhorn Museum and slip, 15 1/2 x 4 x 3 inches, no. VF-0177P. ative concerns….” Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The ALF no. VF-0075CSS. Untitled (Small Pitcher Whitney Museum of American Art, New with Face), c. 1978–1979, Untitled (Construction with Untitled (Animal Personage ceramic and slip, 2 3/4 x Monster Face, Figurines), Viola Frey received her BFA and honor- York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Model), 1975, ceramic and 6 3/4 x 3 3/4 inches, ALF c. 1979–1981, mixed media, ary doctorate from California College of Houston, TX; and Los Angeles County slip, 12 x 6 x 5 1/2 inches, no. VF-0125CSS. 29 1/2 x 18 x 5 inches, the Arts and Crafts and attended gradu- Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA. In ALF no. VF-0076CSS. ALF no. VF-0185PT. Untitled (Amorphous ate school at Tulane University. She was 2000, she co-founded the Artists’ Leg- Untitled (Desert Figure Collapsed Pot with Face), Untitled (Construction with awarded two National Endowment for acy Foundation with Squeak Carnwath Model), 1975, ceramic c. 1975–1977, ceramic and Monster Face, Horse on the Arts fellowships, the Award of Honor and Gary Knecht. Upon her death in and slip, 14 1/2 x 7 1/2 slip, 5 x 9 x 8 1/2 inches, Ledge), c. 1979–1981, mixed in Sculpture from the San Francisco Arts 2004, she became the Foundation’s first x 5 inches, ALF no. ALF no. VF-0131CSS. media, 19 x 12 x 3/4 inches, VF-0077CSS. ALF no. VF-0186PT. Commission, and many other grants Legacy Artist. and awards. All artworks lent by the Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

36 37 Untitled (Female Figure Phobia: Monster Head Don’t Untitled (White Face, Black Untitled (Small Abstract Untitled (Slide 110), 1975, Untitled (Slide 194), 1975, Model), 1975–1976, ceramic, Die Yet, 1979, ceramic and Hand and Eye), 1980, oil and Desert Face with Horns), reprinted 2020, giclee print, reprinted 2020, giclee print, 10 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 6 inches, glazes, 25 x 14 x 12 inches, acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 1/2 c. 1975–1980, ceramic, 3 1/2 x 5 inches, ALF no. 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. ALF no. VF-0204CSS. ALF no. VF-0319CSS. inches, ALF no. VF-0333WP. 5 1/4 x 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches, VFA-9004PH. VFA-9015PH. ALF no. VF-0365CSS. Untitled (Standing Figure Phobia: Monster Head Don’t Untitled (Smiling Vessel Untitled (Slide 361), 1975, Untitled (Slide 203), 1975, with Hat, Model), 1975–1976, Shout, 1979, ceramic and Face), c. 1975–1980, ceramic Untitled (Oval Head, Hat, reprinted 2020, giclee print, reprinted 2020, giclee print, ceramic and slip, 13 1/2 x glazes, 25 x 14 x 12 inches, and slip, 7 x 12 x 12 inches, Leaf Hands), 1979, ceramic 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. 3 1/2 x 5 inches, ALF no. 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches, ALF no. ALF no. VF-0320CSS. ALF no. VF-0335CSS. and glazes, 60 1/2 x 25 x VFA-9005PH. VFA-9018PH. VF-0205CSS. 14 1/2 inches, ALF no. VF- Doll on Grid #9, Shadow Box Untitled (Frowning Vessel 0448CSS. Untitled (Slide 139), 1975, Untitled (Slide 183), 1975, Untitled (Small Head with Figures Series, 1976–1977, Face), c. 1975–1980, reprinted 2020, giclee print, reprinted 2020, giclee print, Loop), 1975–1976, ceramic, ceramic and glazes, 28 1/2 ceramic and slip, 11 1/2 x Untitled (The Traveler), 1980, 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. 3 1/2 x 5 inches, ALF no. slip and glazes, 6 x 4 1/4 x 18 x 5 inches, ALF no. VF- 12 x 6 inches, ALF no. VF- whiteware and glazes, 64 x VFA-9006PH. VFA-9019PH. x 4 inches, ALF no. VF- 0325CSS. 0337CSS. 30 x 18 inches, ALF no. VF- 0239CSS. 0453CSS. Untitled (Slide 344), 1975, Untitled (Slide 289), 1975, Father Doll, Shadow Box Untitled (Vessel, Hand, Head), reprinted 2020, giclee print, reprinted 2020, giclee print, Untitled (Small Head), Figures Series, 1977, c. 1975–1980, ceramic and Untitled (Head in Ring), 1975, 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. Desert Toys Series, 1975, ceramic and glazes, 23 1/2 slip, 13 x 13 x 11 inches, ceramic, slip and glazes, VFA-9007PH. VFA-9020PH. ceramic, slip and glazes, x 9 x 6 1/2 inches, ALF no. ALF no. VF-0339CSS. 4 3/4 x 6 x 6 inches, ALF no. 7 x 6 x 6 inches, ALF no. VF-0327CSS. VF-0586CSS. Untitled (Slide 345), 1975, VF-0250CSS. Untitled (Three Heads, reprinted 2020, giclee print, Ming Blue and White, 1981, Snake in Dish), c. 1975–1980, Untitled (Bricolage Bust 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. Untitled (White Monster oil and acrylic on paper, ceramic and slip, 15 x 9 x with Fan Nose and Elbow on VFA-9008PH. Face on Blue), 1979–1981, 30 x 22 1/2 inches, ALF no. 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. VF- Pitcher), c. 1981, ceramic ceramic and glazes, 20 1/4 VF-0327WP. 0340CSS. and glazes, 38 x 18 x 15 Untitled (Slide 355), 1975, x 20 3/4 x 3 inches, ALF no. inches without base, ALF reprinted 2020, giclee print, VF-0270P. Untitled (Blue Hands, Untitled (Figure with no. VF-0603CSS. 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. Hat of Figurines), Greedy Raised Arms), c. 1975–1980, VFA-9009PH. Untitled (Phobia with Hands Grandmother Series, 1980, ceramic and slip, 16 1/2 x Untitled (Bricolage Bust with to Mouth), 1979, ceramic and oil and acrylic on paper, 8 x 7 inches, ALF no. VF- Hands to Mouth), c. 1980– Untitled (Slide 341), 1975, glazes, 26 x 15 x 12 inches, 30 x 22 1/2 inches, ALF no. 0343CSS. 1983, ceramic and glazes, reprinted 2020, giclee print, ALF no. VF-0309CSS. VF-0330WP. 41 x 15 x 14 inches without 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. Untitled (Head in Hat), base, ALF no. VF-0609CSS. VFA-9010PH. Untitled (Male Doll with Blue Untitled (Head, Funnel, Ball), c. 1975–1980, ceramic Hat), 1977, ceramic and Desert Toys Series, 1975, and slip, 12 x 9 x 8 inches, Untitled (Bear Head), 1976, Untitled (Slide 279), 1975, glazes, 21 x 9 x 5 inches, ceramic, slip and glazes, ALF no. VF-0346CSS. ceramic and slip, 6 3/4 x reprinted 2020, giclee print, ALF no. VF-0316CSS. 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 5 inches, 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, ALF no. 5 x 3 1/2 inches, ALF no. ALF no. VF-0332CSS. VF-0634CSS. VFA-9012PH.

38 39 First published in conjunction with the planned exhibition Gods & Monsters Scheduled April 4–May 24, 2020 American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC

American University Museum Sharon Christiansen, Manager, Museum Operations & Visitor Services Elizabeth Cowgill, Marketing & Publications Specialist Carla Galfano, Registrar Sarah Leary, Museum Operations Assistant Jessica Pochesci, Assistant Registrar Jack Rasmussen, Director & Curator Kevin Runyon, Preparator Kristi-Anne Shaer, Associate Director

Curated by Squeak Carnwath Edited by Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA Design by Lloyd Greenberg Design, LLC

Catalog © The American University Museum ISBN: 978-1-7334166-9-6 Original essay 2019 © Mark Van Proyen Viola Frey artworks © Artists’ Legacy Foundation / Licensed by ARS, New York.

Cover: Viola Frey, Untitled (Animal Personage Model), 1975. Ceramic and slip, 12 x 6 x 5 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0076CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

Inside cover: Viola Frey, Untitled (Three Heads, Snake in Dish), c. 1975–1980. Ceramic and slip, 15 x 9 x 3 1/2 in. ALF no. VF-0340CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA. Photograph by M. Lee Fatherree.

Back cover (clockwise from top left): Viola Frey, Untitled (White Oval Head and White Gloves), 1979. Ceramic and glazes, 24 3/4 x 24 3/4 x 3 1/4 in. ALF no. VF-0159P; Untitled (White Monster Face on Blue), 1979–1981. Ceramic and glazes, 20 1/4 x 20 3/4 x 3 in. ALF no. VF-0270P; Untitled (Dragon and Half Moon), 1982. Ceramic and glazes, 25 x 25 x 4 in. ALF no. VF-0156P; Untitled (Horse with Hand), 1980. Ceramic and glazes, 20 1/2 x 20 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. ALF no. 0119P. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

Opposite: Viola Frey, Untitled (The Traveler), 1980. Whiteware and glazes, 64 x 30 x 18 in. ALF no. VF-0453CSS. Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Oakland, CA.

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