Katherine Choy: Radical Potter in 1950s New Orleans

When she was eighteen years old in 1946, Katherine Choy traveled from her childhood home in Shanghai to study ceramics at Mills College in California. Just six years later, she became the new director of ceramics at Newcomb College in New Orleans. By 1957, she had become renowned across the country for founding the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, New York—which continues to operate in her honor. 

In this special exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Choy's work and biography are put on display—highlighting her inspiration taken from Asian clay traditions, which she expanded in America. Later in her life, she began to experiment with more radical forms—pots with extra necks, asymmetrical vessels, glazes left intentionally incomplete with exposed raw clay. Details at noma.org.