Jan C. Holcomb
18 Kilburn Ave.
Lincoln, RI 02865
Education
Roosevelt High School, Seattle, Washington, Diploma, 1964
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, BA., History, 1968
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, BFA, Ceramics/Painting, 1974
California State University at Sacramento, MA., Ceramics, 1977
Professional Experience
Instructor, Ceramics Program, Rhode Island School of Design, 1977 - present
Instructor, Ceramics, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, June 1996
Selected Exhibitions
"California Crafts X", E.B. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, 1977
"Form, Function, Fantasy", Long Beach CA, 1979
"Homage to Wedgwood", Buten Museum, Philadelphia, 1980
"One Person Show", Art Latitude Gallery, New York, NY, October 1980
"New Fauves", Hadler Rodriguez Gallery, Houston, Texas, December 1980
"Narrative Ceramics", Impressions Gallery, Boston, January 1983
"Imagined Icons", Clark Gallery, Lincoln MA, April 1984
"Inaugural Show", Dorothy Weiss Gallery, San Francisco, July 1984
"Sculpture Invitational", College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, Ohio, October 1984
"Clay Philadelphia", Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, October 1984
"The Surrealist Figure", Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles and New York, January 1985
"In the Eye of the Beholder: A Portrait of Our Time", SUNY New Paltz, NY, March 1985
"Contemporary American Ceramics; Twenty Artists", Newport Harbor Museum,
Newport Harbor, CA, May - July, 1985
"One Person Show", Garth Clark Gallery, New York, NY, May 1986
"Poetry of the Physical', American Craft Museum, New York, Six City National Tour,
1986-1988
"From the Source", California State University, Sacramento, February 1987
"American Ceramics 1876 - Present", Garth Clark Gallery, New York, June 1988
"Surreal Ceramics", John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI, March - May 1989
"One Person Show", Ruth Seigel Gallery, New York, NY, September 1990
"The Collection of Stephane Janssen", University of Arizona, Tempe, April 1991
"Three Person Show", National Museum of Ceramics, Baltimore MD, February - April 1992
"The Clay Figure", The Society for Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh PA, Feb.- April1992
"Self Portrait: The Changing Self", New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, April - May, 1993
"Tales and Traditions: Storytelling in 20th Century American Craft", Craft Alliance,
St.Louis, March - May, 1993
"The George and Dorothy Saxe Collection", St. Louis Art Museum, Newport Harbor Art Museum,
CA, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Dec. 1993 - Feb. 1995
"A Fire for Ceramics", Contemporary Art from the Daniel Jacobs and Derek Mason Collection,
Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, VA, Nov. 1998 - Jan. 1999
“Contemporary American Ceramics 1950 – 1990”. Kyoto Museum of Modern Art,
Aichi, Kyoto, April – Sept. 2002.
“Without Boundaries: Transformations in American Craft”, Craft Alliance, St. Louis, August 24, 2012 – October 21, 2012
"The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection of Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture" (Sept. 5- Nov. 11, 2014)., Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Selected Publications
"Children of an Anxious Age", Maria Porges, American Ceramics, 6/4, pp. 20-25
"In the Eye of the Beholder", Michael McTwigan, American Ceramics, 1985, pp.23-24
"Step by Step", Portfolio Article, Jan Holcomb, Ceramics Monthly, Oct., 1988, pp. 34-37
"Medium of the Unconscious", Maria Porges, Art Week, Mar. 1987, ill., p.5
"A Celebration of Life...", Michael McTwigan, American Ceramics, 6/1, pp.35-36
"Poetry of the Physical", Exhibition Catalogue, American Craft Museum, p.43
"American Ceramics: 1876 - Present", Garth Clark, Abbyville Press, pp.192-94
“Post Modernist Ceramics”, Mark Del Vecchio, Thames & Hudson, pp.154. 201
“Painted Clay”, Paul Scott, New York: Watson-Guptill, p.110
Selected Awards
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grants, 1979 - 80
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grants, 1988 - 89
Selected Lectures
New York University, October, 1980
Rochester Institute of Technology, March, 1983
Brown University, November, 1983
NCECA Conference, Boston, March 1984
Sacramento State University, February 1987
University of Massachusetts Amherst, October 1989
Anderson Ranch Art Center, June 1996
Selected Collections
Ronald Abramson, Washington, DC.
Stephen and Pamela Hootkin, New York, NY
Stephane Janssen, Arizona
George and Dorothy Saxe, Menlo Park, CA
Alfred and Mary Shands, Louisville, KY