RUTH DUCKWORTH, MODERNIST SCULPTOR
Cranbrook Art Museum
http://www.cranbrookart.edu
NOVEMBER 19, 2005 THROUGH JANUARY 15, 2006

Cranbrook Art Museum presents a retrospective exhibition of sculptor/ceramicist Ruth Duckworth’s six decade career. Such shows serve in many ways like a thumbprint uniquely identifying the whorls, turns, and complex patterns that define an artist’s career. It comes as more than a bit of a surprise to learn that at age 81, this is the first such retrospective of this long celebrated artist. That said, it makes this exhibition at Cranbrook at this time all the more significant.

Comprehensive labels throughout the gallery offer insight into her work, as well as details about her life including a brief overview of her biography: German born, Duckworth fled to England with her family to escape the Nazis as a teenager. There she stayed and began her trajectory into the art world, until in 1964 she was invited to come to Chicago to teach for a year, and has remained there ever since.

The exhibition is laid out loosely along the chronological path of Duckworth’s career. The earliest piece on display (from 1946) heavily acknowledges her roots in the Modernist tradition. One can see the influence of someone like Henry Moore resonating strongly in this female fertility figure – very formal, with arms crossed, all composed of solid geometric planes. Moving to the next piece sequentially, we find it is quite similar in its overall form, yet with the figurative component more or less dissolved. The space between what could have been arms becomes a hole in the carved alabaster object from 1948 and completes the transformation of the metaphorical vessel of the female figure into a literal vessel. Subsequent pieces all the way up through the most current, move her work further in the direction of creating vessels as she began adopting more of the methods of a ceramicist.

Much conversation on Duckworth concerns her dual role as sculptor and ceramicist. It seems she dances on the boundaries between them offering a rather complete and singular fusion of the two. The majority of her works have the quality of being vessels –considering the relationship between what is on the inside and what is on the outside as a ceramicist would. Simultaneously these are also sculptural objects, and as such are representations of the body in space. Her vessels make consistent reference to the body. Tea cup like forms, are intersecting by flat planes, elongated forms insert into openings in the vessels. Complemented with subtle flesh toned glazing at times, we find navels, nipples, and other bodily orifices. This speaks to the condition of being human – Duckworth captures our outsides and our insides – the body both as physical, sensual object and as vessel – a container of thoughts and emotions.

As much as Duckworth’s work has evolved over time, she never abandons past forms altogether. Instead she continues to cycle and recycle as she moves forward. Some of her most recent works might seem to have been created in the earliest phase of her work. Detecting the exact timeline (without the aid of labels) is not easy. She continually builds on her own set of symbols, which recur throughout the work, yet the use of them each time is never repetitious. The female fertility image is one such icon as is an early piece of powerful, graceful bull’s horns, (the bull also being an ancient symbol of fertility) – these graceful dual curves crop up throughout the work time and again. Birds are another consistent theme – hers are elongated, lithe forms. These are symbolic of flight, of freedom, and also of really seeing a broad view of the planet (as only one high up can do.) This certainly speaks to Duckworth’s own journey and also to her inclusion within her work of so many different influences from the Modernist to the African and more.

One of her newest pieces Duckworth brings an Eastern sensibility to her work. Occupying the entrance to the exhibition, stoneware “rocks,” stick up from the floor, arranged so as to appear as rocks in a stream. The delicately glazed “rocks” (and really much more should be said in this writeup about her ability to deftly manipulate her glazes throughout the work) are not isolated objects but an environment, a mood to embrace the viewer. This is further demonstration that Duckworth is a very whole thinker. The vessel that is her body of work is continually enriched by new perspectives, rather than isolating or being restricted. Picture her work a bit like mixing dough – continuously folding in new influences and creating rich surprises, but always maintaining a certain consistency to the entire mixture.

In fact, Duckworth doesn’t just exist as sculptor and ceramicist, but her very vessels unfold (or perhaps we zoom in on a section of them) and become landscapes. In doing so she also incorporates into her repertoire the vocabulary of a painter and must deal with issues of composition. She has created wall reliefs, with elements on the surface and floating just above it, all about composition to large scale murals (of which maquettes and photos are on display.) As her more vessel-like, sculptural forms find their way into her landscapes (complete with undulating and cascading areas), so to do the ideas of composition tackled while working in the plane end up informing the others. It’s a constant and vital feedback stream. The murals also show another element to Duckworth’s work, that is caretaker of the earth. This may be evident in some of the earliest pieces, vessels that are almost globes, like swollen fertile bellies with no body that have become the Earth. This becomes more literal in one piece in particular, a mural depicting and titled, the “Clouds Over Lake Michigan.” This piece offers that bird’s eye view (her bird icon coupled with the mother figure?) complete with strips strips of clouds that bear no small resemblance to the intersecting planes in some of her bowl-like works as well as earlier wall reliefs. It’s a unique perspective, and really offers a view of this planet as a whole, connected organism – an object and a vessel precious for life.

It’s of interest to note how much of the work on display is in the collection of the artist herself. These are creations she lives with, an extension of her identity that she continues to surround herself with. Cranbrook provides a glimpse of her Chicago home/studio in a photograph printed on a screen behind the faux rock installation (which gracefully and cleverly conceals a nook that would otherwise disrupt the harmony inherent in that installation). The section of the terraced room that we see, very much looks like a considered, deliberate landscape befitting this artist we have come to know through all these pieces of her work. In addition to the works on display, there is also a movie showing continually discussing Duckworth’s life and art.

By putting on this extremely comprehensive exhibition of Duckworth (especially on the heels of a similar retrospective of Bridget Riley), Cranbrook does its students and our community at large a great service and as such should be commended. This is a strong show visually, conceptually, and for the highest level of craftsmanship on display. But perhaps the highest praise for the work is just how very human it is. Whether a student of art, appreciator of art, or anyone, this is a tremendous opportunity to get to see the entire career (thus far) of an important artist that is not to be missed. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

"Photographs courtesy of Cranbrook Art Museum. All rights reserved."