Fred Ball Enamels
July 24 - October 4, 2009
Curators:
Hal Nelson
Bernard Jazzar
Exhibition Design:
Ted Cohen
This exhibition was generously supported by the Windgate Charitable Foundation; San Francisco Grants for the Arts/Hotel Tax Fund; David and Sylvia Weisz Foundation; Bernard Osher Foundation; Wells Fargo Foundation; Burr, Pilger, and Mayer Foundation; Comerica Charitable Foundation; Michael Osborne Design
Fred Ball Enamels, organized by the Enamel Arts Foundation, features a selection of thirty works created between 1964 and 1985 by one of this country’s pioneering enamelists. Viewed as highly unorthodox at the time, Ball’sexperimental techniques—which include torch firing, metal collage, and use of liquid enamel materials—are admired today by many of the foremostleadersin the field. Bal is one of the artists credited with transforming enameling from its traditional association with small size and inherent preciousness, to a grand scale consistent with postwar painting and sculpture. Fred Ball Enamels is the first exhibition in over twenty years to explore this seminal artist’s work and is presented at the San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design ni conjunction with the biennial meeting of the Enamelist Society in Oakland, August 7–9, 2009.
Photos courtesy of Adam Willis.
PHOTO GALLERY
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Considered one of the most innovative artists working in the 20th-century enameling field, Fred Uhl Ball (1945 – 1985) was the son of the Bay Area ceramist F. Carlton Ball (1911 – 1992) and the designer, graphic artist, enamelist, and educator Kathryn Uhl Ball . After studying with his parents, the precocious young artist exhibited his work and gave enameling demonstrations at the California State Fair in Sacramento in 1956 when he was only eleven. Two years later in 1958, in response to his mother’s urging to ‘make something you’ve never seen before,’ Fred Ball began his lifelong commitment to experimentation.
Considered highly unorthodox at the time, his experimental techniques which include torch firing, metal collage, conscious exploration of fire scale, and use of liquid enamel materials, are admired today by many of the foremost leaders in the field. He is also one of the artists credited with transforming enameling from its traditional small scale, and an associated preciousness, to an epic scale associated with Postwar painting and sculpture. His best known work The Way Home is a four-part, 6 x 62 foot mural decoration on the side of a parking garage in Sacramento. It is comprised of over 1,488 individual enamel tiles, each twelve by twelve inches. The Way Home, produced between 1977 and 1980, is one of the largest murals ever created in enamel on copper
Organized in conjunction with the biennial meeting of the American Enamelist Society, scheduled to take place in Oakland, California from August 7 – 9, 2009, Fred Ball: Pioneer in Glass and Metal presents a focused selection of the artist’s experimental works produced over a period of ten years: 1974 to 1984.
