David Shaner (1934- 2002) is recognized as an artist who had considerable impact on contemporary ceramics. His innovative work influenced new growth in 20th-century studio ceramics and his perseverance and hard work saved the Archie Bray Foundation from foreclosure in 1966. Today, it is an honor for the Hockaday Museum of Art to showcase a retrospective on the life’s work and accomplishments of this great artist who meant so much to so many people. 
This retrospective exhibition will span his career as a potter with work from his years at Alfred University to his last designs of cirques and shields. Works for this exhibition are being loaned from many private local collections, as well as from the Holter Museum in Helena, and the Shaner Family Collection. 

Sponsored by Ann Shaner, Sterling Title, 
Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, 
Wells Fargo Bank, and The Wallace Foundation

David Shaner exhibit posters, catalogs, and banners are available for purchase in the Museum's Off the Wall Gift Gallery. Your purchase supports the Museum’s exhibit and education programs.

Related Events:  Lecture by Peter Held Curator of Ceramics at the Ceramics Research Center at Arizona State University Art Museum Thursday April 14, 2005 at 5:30 PM

Held received his B.S. degree in studio art from the State University of New York at Brockport, where he studied ceramics with Bill Stewart. Upon graduation, he moved to Helena to become a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts. He later completed a Masters degree in Museum Administration at Oregon State University and interned at the Portland Art Museum. He returned to Helena in 1994 to serve as Executive Director and Curator of the Holter Museum of Art. Peter helped successfully lead a $2.3 million capital and endowment campaign. He is currently Curator of Ceramics at the Ceramic Research Center, part of the ASU Art Museum at Arizona State University, Tempe. Held also serves as a trustee for the American Craft Council.

Peter has curated over fifty exhibitions since 1989 including five traveling ceramic shows: Ashen Beauty: Woodfired Ceramics; David Shaner: A Potter’s Work, 1963-1993; Sisters of the Earth: Native American Ceramics; A Ceramic Continuum: Fifty Years of the Archie Bray Influence; and the upcoming exhibition Between Clouds of Memory: Akio Takamori, A Mid-Career Survey.
Held has authored numerous articles on contemporary art and crafts, and is the editor of A Ceramic Continuum: Fifty Years of the Archie Bray Influence and the forthcoming publication Between Clouds of Memory: Akio Takamori, A Mid-Career Survey, to be released in September 2005.