272: PATTI WARASHINA, Highballs < Modern Design, 13 May 2020 < Auctions

Patti Warashina

2020 Smithsonian Visionary Artist

Patti Warashina was born in Seattle, Washington in 1940. She is called the queen of Northwest ceramics. In the 1960s, she was part of a cadre of young rebel artists who expanded the boundaries of clay as an art medium. She began teaching in 1964 and helped grow the ceramics program at the University of Washington’s School of Art, into one of the best-known in the United States.

Warashina’s work is often humorous, and she uses sculpture to explore such themes as the human condition, feminism, the macho car-culture, and political and social topics. She often places clay figures in imagined environments and to tell stories.

In 1984, the Seattle Arts Commission chose her for a prestigious public-art commission that became one of the city’s most celebrated artworks. A Procession, a 4’ by 10’ x 3’ tableau built of whiteware and mixed media, includes 72 figures parading over—and floating under—a bridge, like a triumphal arch, each depicting a recognizable person in the Seattle art world, artists, sculptors, art critics. A Procession is in the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle.

Warashina’s work is in the permanent collection of Smithsonian American Art’s Renwick Gallery and in more than twenty museums in the U.S., Asia, England, and Australia. She has received numerous awards and in 2005, was interviewed for Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. A Professor Emerita at the University of Washington, Warashina dedicated decades to teaching ceramics, considered by some to be the most difficult and challenging of all art media.

pattiwarashina.com
historylink.org/File/20442

Rago is privileged to participate in this exceptional event, celebrating these visionary artists and supporting one of our nation’s most important cultural institutions.

Suzanne Perrault

The Smithsonian Visionary Benefit Auction

Works Sold to Benefit The Smithsonian Institution

Rago is pleased to present The Smithsonian Visionary Benefit Auction within our Modern Design sale. This special section features items created by past and present Smithsonian Visionary Artists, all sold to benefit the Smithsonian Institution.

The Visionary Award, established in 2014, is presented annually to artists who are deemed by curators in the field to have risen to the pinnacle in the world of sculptural arts and design, who have works in major museums, and who have demonstrated distinction, creativity, artistry, and of course, vision in his or her respective medium.

Patti Warashina, the 2020 recipient of the Visionary Award, joins the small but prestigious list of past recipients: Joyce J. Scott, Faith Ringgold, Dale Chihuly, Toots Zynsky, Wendell Castle and Albert Paley.

All lots in the Visionary Benefit Auction are of the primary market, unless otherwise indicated. They are being sold with all proceeds going to the Smithsonian Institution and will be shipped directly from the artist or the gallery. Rago is waiving the buyer's premium on each of these works.