Doyle Lane. Portrait by Ben Serar.
As Objects: USA toured the nation in 1970, another exhibition opened at Mills College in Oakland, California. Though far less known and more modest in scale, it was every bit as groundbreaking. The title: California Black Craftsmen.¹ Curated by Evangeline J. “E.J.” Montgomery, a printmaker who was married to a jeweler, the show of nineteen makers was (at least according to Craft Horizons) the first ever devoted to African American craftspeople in a public museum. If there was one standout talent in the group, it was Doyle Lane. A skilled ceramist based in Los Angeles—he had worked in the ceramics industry as a technician—he had incredible finesse.
In a review of Montgomery’s exhibition, Craft Horizons emphasized this quality of refinement, citing Lane’s “carefully-thrown [sic] small-necked earthenware bottles coated with elegant glazes.”² His mastery of glazing was also put to great effect in tile murals—“clay paintings,” as they have been called—which typically feature dominant color blocks with contrasting primary colors (like the example in the Objects: USA 2020 catalogue, which stages an ocher yellow against a field of turquoise blue). “Why not take paintings out of doors,” he said, “where one may sit and watch the changing play of sunshine on the glazes and thus have changes of mood during the day?”³
¹ Evangeline J. Montgomery, California Black Craftsmen (Oakland: Mills College Art Gallery, 1970).
² Alan Meisel, “Letter from San Francisco,” Craft Horizons 30, no. 3 (May/June 1970): 67.
³ Interview with Doyle Lane, Studio Potter (1981).
Weed pot vessels in earthenware. Designed and made by Doyle Lane, USA, 1960s-70s.
4" H x 4.5" D | 10.2cm H x 11.4cm D | SC847
4" H x 4" D | 10.2cm H x 10.2cm D | SC848
5" H x 5.5" D | 12.7cm H x 14cm D | SC849
2.5" H x 3.25" D | 6.4cm H x 8.3cm D | SC850
2" H x 3" D | 5.1cm H x 7.6cm D | SC851
2" H x 2.75" D | 5.1cm H x 7cm D | SC852
2.5" H x 2.5" D | 6.4cm H x 6.4cm D | SC853
Private Collection of Patrick Parrish