This is the first major museum retrospective on Doyle Lane (1923–2002). It's long overdue and certainly won't be the last. The exhibition was curated by Lauren Cross, who also wrote the accompanying book, which you need to get.
Most people know Lane's weed pots and maybe even the clay paintings, but this exhibition includes the whole breadth of his work. He made everything from ashtrays, lamps, bowls, beads, and even metalwork.
The book adds so much to what we know about Doyle. Lauren writes about Lane's childhood and time before moving to California, which hasn't been explored before. There is so much firsthand information about Lane, the person, from friends, relatives and in his own voice. The interviews are some of my favorite parts of the book. Reading transcripts of Doyle going into depth about his glaze process is next-level craft geek stuff.
This post is more of an overview of the exhibition. I encourage you to see it in person. There are over 100 pieces and it includes the most incredible examples in each category. Plus, photos could never do his glazes justice. I've already been twice and I'm sure I'll be back a few more times.
The pieces come from a few institutions, but are primarily from collectors and people who were friends with Doyle.
The large bowl on the left was recently donated to The Huntington by Doyle's longtime friend, Cynthia Jackson. A lot of what we know about Lane comes from friends like Cynthia, Stanley C Wilson and Lee Witten. The fact that they were friends and worked alongside Doyle as ceramicists, really adds so much.
This tall vase comes from the collection of Ben Serar, who knew Doyle and is the reason we have those great photos of him in the studio.
Lidded vessel from comes from my friend Derrick Johnson. He has quite the ceramics collection and is fond of covered jars in general. It's fitting that he has this one by Lane, which is might be the only one I have ever seen.
I first saw the mural in the middle in 2011.
It was in the Fat Chance Booth at Los Angeles Modernism. The owner and longtime friend, Jeff Schuerholz, told me it came from a collection in Palm Desert. Gerard O'Brien bought it at the show before it opened to the public.
David Limburger, who owned Studio 111 in Palm Springs, purchased the mural from Reform and lived with it in Malibu for a number of years.
In 2013, David and Sheila lent the mural to The Landing exhibition at Reform,
Doyle Lane : Clay Paintings. Here it is, in the window. The Landing published a catalog on the clay paintings. Although he had been in a number of books, this was the first one dedicated fully to work by Doyle Lane. The introduction was by artist and avid Lane collector, Ricky Swallow.
The Landing exhibition included other clay paintings currently in the Huntington exhibition, as well as the Mutual Savings and Loan mural that was gifted to The Huntington in 2014 (photo at the end of this post).
Neil Lane purchased the piece from Limburger. Neil was introduced to Lane's work after seeing an LA Times article about the the clay paintings exhibition at The Landing. He visited the exhibition and has since built the largest collection of Doyle Lane clay paintings. Neil was also one of the supporters who helped make The Huntington exhibition happen.
Maybe in the future I'll write more in-depth about other pieces in this exhibition. This was interesting to me because of the number of friends involved in the journey to land on the wall of The Huntington. Not to mention, it's one of best murals.
Other pieces in the exhibition have been squirreled away in private collections and are on public view for the first time. These reliefs are on loan from Juan Salazar and Luis Corona.
As mentioned, many of the clay painting belong to Neil Lane. In addition to being a Lane collector, he does the rings for The Bachelor TV show. I learned this while I was on the phone with him a few years ago. He asked me to hold because he said he needed pick up his tuxedo from the cleaners for The Bachelor. I laughed and he asked why. I thought he was making a joke since I've never seen the show.
The mask on the left is from the collection of Ian White, the son of artist Charles White. The one on the right is mine. The bird belongs to Juan and Luis.
All these belong to Juan and Luis.
Part of the ephemera wall.
Then, there are the weed pots. As we knw, they are Lane's most popular form. In addition to the thing he produced most of, they also serve as the perfect vehicle to show off his mastery of glaze formulation and application.
Many of these may look familiar because they were shown in the two David Kordansky Gallery exhibitions focused on weed pots, in
Los Angeles and
New York. Ricky Swallow curated the exhibitions and wrote the book,
Doyle Lane: Weed Pots, published by Kordansky in 2022. David and Ricky also loaned pieces from their personal collections.
The really good blue pot belongs to another of Doyle's friends from back in the day, Rudy Estrada.
Early and utilitarian works.
The short film on Doyle, directed by Directed by Kyle Provencio Reingold, is playing in the exhibition.
You can also watch it,
here.
The exhibition runs until March and there is talk about it traveling.
Make sure to visit the Mutual Savings and Loan mural while you're there.
Doyle Lane : Master of Clay at the Huntington Art Museum, Library and Botanical Gardens.
This post is more of an overview of the exhibition. I encourage you to see it in person. There are over 100 pieces and it includes the most incredible examples in each category. Plus, photos could never do his glazes justice. I've already been twice and I'm sure I'll be back a few more times.
The pieces come from a few institutions, but are primarily from collectors and people who were friends with Doyle.
The large bowl on the left was recently donated to The Huntington by Doyle's longtime friend, Cynthia Jackson. A lot of what we know about Lane comes from friends like Cynthia, Stanley C Wilson and Lee Witten. The fact that they were friends and worked alongside Doyle as ceramicists, really adds so much.
I first saw the mural in the middle in 2011.
