Southern California potter Harrison McIntosh helped turn ceramics into fine art

CLAREMONT, Calif. - With his hands on the wheel, Harrison McIntosh helped steer ceramics from minor craft toward fine art for more than half a century.

The 94-year-old studio potter has made more than 9,000 pieces since he started keeping track in 1953. Some of those are in museums around the world, from the Louvre in France, the Mingei in Japan and the Smithsonian in Washington to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the San Diego Museum of Fine Art.

More than 100 pieces will be on display Sept. 12 through Nov. 28 at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, 56 kilometres east of downtown Los Angeles and just a few from McIntosh's home and studio in Claremont.

A soft-spoken, unassuming man with steady hands and a quick smile, McIntosh is nearly blind and hasn't thrown a pot in five years. But he and Marguerite, his artist-wife-agent-fan of 57 years, love to talk about his work, which the ceramic museum calls "A Timeless Legacy."

Occasionally, someone will tell McIntosh they own one of his best pieces. He laughs and says, "I always tried to make each piece I worked on my best."

Perfection has more than one meaning, his wife said.

"Harrison never worked fast. He's slow in everything and that's why he has a quality that is special to his work," she said.

"In a work of art, you have to put your soul into it. If you work too hard toward physical perfection, you may destroy the soul and the initial inspiration. This is what Harrison means by perfect. It still has the spirit that he wanted originally. It has nothing to do with the technical perfection of a line."

McIntosh, who turns 95 the day before his exhibit starts, shared his studio with buddy Rupert "Rummy" Deese. The men fired all their work in a secondhand kiln they bought in San Diego in 1950.

The potters were among those who helped blur the line between fine art and decorative, applied or functional art.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens has long displayed American art without distinguishing between the two, said Kevin Murphy, the museum's associate curator of American art.

In its permanent exhibit, a McIntosh pot is displayed next to a Robert Motherwell painting.

For years, McIntosh and other artists met weekly at Walter's Restaurant in Claremont. McIntosh, Deese, Sam Maloof - one of most famous furniture makers in the country - and painter James Heuter became known as "The Four Friends," but they often shared their table with the likes of Karl Benjamin or Paul Darrow.

These designers, potters, painters and sculptors all worked together and fed off each other's ideas, Murphy said. "They were not making things into something they were not, but borrowing from fine art while respecting their own mediums."

A half-century ago, McIntosh sold his work for $1.50 a piece. Younger brother Robert would sell the pots to eager Disney colleagues.

Today, one of McIntosh's pots might bring $15,000 and one of his sculptures as much as $25,000.

McIntosh and his wife recently moved into a retirement apartment, leaving the family home and studio to daughter Catherine McIntosh, who is preparing the September exhibit.

But there is artwork all around the house. And it isn't just McIntosh's. He would often swap pieces with friends. McIntosh traded with Maloof for an exquisite dining room table. Today it sits with one of his pots on top and Benjamin art behind it.