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Daniel Rhodes | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1911-05-08)May 8, 1911 Fort Dodge, Iowa, US |
| Died | July 23, 1989(1989-07-23) (aged 78) Reno, Nevada, US |
| Other names | Dan Rhodes |
| Alma mater | Art Students League of New York,University of Chicago,Art Institute of Chicago,Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center,Alfred University |
| Spouse(s) | Lillyan Rhodes, Mary Beth Coulter |
| Children | 2, includingAaron Rhodes |
Daniel Rhodes (May 8, 1911 – July 23, 1989) was an American artist, known as aceramic artist,muralist,sculptor,author and educator. During his 25 years (1947–1973) on the faculty at theNew York State College of Ceramics atAlfred University, inAlfred, New York (a division of theState University of New York), he built an international reputation as a potter, sculptor and authority onstudio pottery.
Rhodes was born on May 8, 1911, and raised inFort Dodge, Iowa, the son of Daniel J. and Margaret Agnes (née Brennan) Rhodes. He began his art career by enrolling in summer courses at theArt Institute of Chicago. He attended theUniversity of Chicago for four years (1929–1933), earning a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Art History.[1] He worked withIowa painterGrant Wood for two summers (1932 and 1933) at theStone City Art Colony, and then also studied at theArt Students League of New York (1933–34), where his teacher wasRegionalist painterJohn Steuart Curry.[1]
From 1935 to 1938, Rhodes lived in Fort Dodge, where he worked as a painter andmuralist, participated in the Fort Dodge Art Guild, and lectured at the Blanden Art Gallery (now the Blanden Memorial Art Museum). While living in Iowa, he participated actively in the state's art circles, and frequently exhibited at theIowa State Fair, where he won an unprecedented three consecutive annual sweepstakes awards for oil painting from 1938 to 1940, outdistancing a record held by Grant Wood.
After additional study in 1940 at theColorado Springs Fine Arts Center (where he began to work with clay), Rhodes entered the graduate program at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, where, in 1942, he became the first person to graduate from that school'sMaster of Fine Arts program. After completing his MFA degree at Alfred University, the Rhodes remained in that area, where he worked as a designer forGlidden Pottery.
In 1939-40, Rhodes taught at the Art Students’ Workshop in Des Moines, Iowa and was also a guest lecturer at theOttumwa Art Center andIowa State University.
In 1940, he married the former Lillyan Estelle Jacobs of Des Moines, a potter, sculptor andfigurative painter whom he had met at Stone City. They raised two children, a daughter and a son. Lillyan Rhodes died in 1986.[2]
Rhodes received several mural commissions from theSection of Painting and Sculpture.[1] The first, titledStorm Lake (1937), was created for thepost office atStorm Lake, Iowa. Later, when a new post office was built, the mural was relocated to the public library.[3]
In the same year, Rhodes and another Iowa painter named Howard C. Johnson were commissioned to create a large mural (110 feet wide by 10 feet (3.0 m) high), planned for installation in the Agricultural Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds inDes Moines.[4] TitledWhere tillage begins, other arts follow, the project was a commemoration of Iowaagriculture: planting, harvesting, production, and themeat packing industry. Unfortunately, it soon became the subject of a public derision. Opinionated passersby complained about factual inaccuracies in the mural, claimed that the figures of Iowans were too solemn, and objected to what they considered to be a style that was “too modern.” In 1946, Iowa State Fair Board Secretary Lloyd Cunningham ordered that the mural be taken down and that the dismantled pieces be used as scrap lumber. Apparently, all that now survives of the mural are a few photographs.[citation needed]
Another mural is titledCommunication by Mail (1939) and is located atMarion, Iowa.[5] Rhodes painted this mural in the time-honored technique offresco-secco, directly onto the Post Office's lobby wall. It features the role of therailroad in transporting mail. The Post Office was decommissioned and sold to the city of Marion in 1968. The city used the building as the City Hall until 2005. The building sat empty for a year before being bought by a bank. In June 2008, Anton Rajer a professional fine art conservator fromGreen Bay, WI will begin work to move the mural to the Marion Heritage Center. The mural is estimated to weigh approximately 2,000–3,000 pounds, and will be removed from the building in one piece by a team of contractors.
Rhodes created a mural,Airmail (1941), for the U.S. Post Office inPiggott, Arkansas.[6] On April 10, 2019, in Piggott, the US Postal Service released a series of postage stamps featuring post office murals, including "Airmail." The Postal Service planned to produce 30 million of the stamps.
His success in completing these projects led to Rhodes being commissioned for New Deal art projects in other states, including post office murals atClayton, Missouri (now at the Federal Building in Des Moines), andGlen Ellyn, Illinois;[7] and a cafeteria mural in the mainU.S. Navy building inWashington, D.C.
In 1943, they moved toCalifornia, where he worked inSan Jose as a researcher in high heat ceramics for theHenry J. Kaiser Corporation. Three years later, they moved toMenlo Park, California, where in 1947 they built a full-scale ceramic studio, and created thrown and cast ware for Gump's, theSan Franciscodepartment store. During the same period, Rhodes was briefly on the faculties atStanford University (1946) and theSan Francisco Art Institute (1946–47). In 1947, they returned to New York State, where Rhodes joined the art department faculty of his alma mater, the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, where he taught from 1947 to 1973.
While at Alfred University, Rhodes also taught summer sessions in ceramics at theUniversity of Southern California,Los Angeles (1952–53);Black Mountain College,Asheville, North Carolina; and theHaystack Mountain School of Crafts,Deer Isle, Maine (1961). Rhodes later taught at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz (1977–1980).
Rhodes was the recipient of aFulbright Fellowship and lived inJapan from 1962 to 1963. TheNational Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) awarded him a medal of citation for his contributions to teaching in 1973. His accomplishments were recognized by major retrospectives at the Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge, Iowa (1973), and at Iowa State University, Ames (1986).
In the last phase of his life, Rhodes married his second wife, Mary Beth Coulter.[2]
At the start of a two-month tour of college campuses, he was conducting a workshop atSierra Nevada College when he was stricken by aheart attack and died inReno, Nevada, in July 1989, aged 78.[2]
Rhodes' work is in many permanent museum collections including theSmithsonian American Art Museum,[8][9]Oakland Museum of California,[10][9] theVictoria and Albert Museum,[11]Everson Museum of Art,[12][9]Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,[13]Detroit Institute of Arts,[14]National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto,Museum of Contemporary Crafts,Des Moines Art Center, among others.
In 2020, artist Kari Marboe created a tribute work and exhibition for Rhodes atMills College titled,Kari Marboe: Duplicating Daniel.[15]
As an authority on ceramics techniques, Rhodes is well known as an author among studio potters and ceramic sculptors.
