Edward Eberle 2017 Terra Sigillata Porcelain Cup "Thanks! I Needed That Like..."

Item Details

Edward Eberle (Pennsylvania; born 1944)
Thanks! I Need That Like a Hole in the Head, 2017
Porcelain with terra sigillata
Signed to the underside

A porcelain cup with terra sigillata titled Thanks! I Needed That Like a Hole in the Head by Edward Eberle (Pennsylvania; born 1944), dated 2017. This piece features a delicately hand-painted face with impressed eye, nose, and chin details with half-circle handle embellishments mimicking ears on either side. There is a small hole through the center of the face’s forehead and a large exclamation mark is painted to the verso. The artist’s initials and title are present to the underside of the vessel.

Edward Eberle specializes in porcelain pottery decorated with sgraffito embellishments and terra sigillata, a clay-based black slip glaze. His ceramic works are painted with a range of designs, spanning from classically inspired imagery, lyrical abstractions rendered with gestural delineations, and surrealist narratives consisting of human, animal, and celestial forms. In addition, he creates architectonic sculptures that often feature pottery fragments and other media reconfigured into deconstructed juxtapositions. His work is very process-based in that he often throws a pot first without premeditating the decorated imagery, then is inspired to paint the imagery or narrative based on the finished form of the pottery. In addition to Picasso, Miro, Duchamp, Klee, de Kooning, and other Modern artists, Eberle’s artistic influences range from the Japanese Oribe and Kutani periods, black-on-white New Mexican Mimbre bowls, Pysanky Ukranian Easter eggs, and ancient Greek pottery.

Currently based in Homestead of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Edward Eberle received his B.S. at Edinboro State College and his M.F.A. at New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University. He has taught at Philadelphia College of Art and was an Associate Professor in Ceramics and Drawings at Carnegie Mellon University. His work has been exhibited at numerous institutions including the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA), the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, OH), the Fuller Museum of Art (Brockton, MA), the Racine Art Museum (Racine, WI), and the Frick Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA), among others. In 2016, a retrospective of his work was organized by the Pittsburgh Society for Contemporary Craft, which traveled to The Clay Studio (Philadelphia, PA) and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (Houston, TX).

Condition

- minor glaze inclusions.

Dimensions

Item #

ITMG122201