Ken Price American, 1935-2012

Ken Price was best known for his groundbreaking ceramic sculptures that blurred the boundaries between craft and fine art. Born in Los Angeles, he became a central figure in the postwar West Coast art scene and is often associated with the “Finish Fetish” movement. Price studied at the Chouinard Art Institute and the Otis Art Institute, later earning his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.

 

While widely celebrated for his fired clay sculptures—hand-shaped, biomorphic forms built up with layers of acrylic—Price also produced a significant body of work on paper and paintings. These include vividly colored drawings, gouaches, and mixed-media works that echo the playful forms, surreal imagery, and bold palettes of his sculpture. His two-dimensional works often explore similar organic shapes and imaginative compositions, offering insight into his creative process and expanding his visual language beyond ceramics.

 

Over a career spanning five decades, Price exhibited widely and was instrumental in redefining the possibilities of ceramic art within contemporary practice. A major retrospective of his work was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2012 and traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

Works by Ken Price are held in numerous major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others.