The Crocker Art Museum is pleased to announce Mary Tuthill Lindheim: Kindred Responses to Life, on view from September 8, 2024 – February 16, 2025. The exhibition showcases approximately 40 works by artist and activist Mary Tuthill Lindheim (1912–2004), a majority of which were made during her time living in the greater Bay Area region. Lindheim embraced exciting new directions across a variety of media with artworks that reflected her beliefs in social justice and the interconnectedness of nature, humanity, and the cosmos.

Through a series of thematic groupings inspired by Lindheim’s “Credo”—a set of radical principles through which she expressed her dedication to social activism and a compassionate approach to life—the exhibition places her studio pottery, sculpture, wall pieces, and jewelry in context with rising social justice movements. “Lindheim’s responses to art and life are politically and aesthetically significant, offering lessons on how California artists participated in an ecosystem of activism and cultural labor in the later half of the 20th century,” notes Sara Morris, the Crocker’s Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics. “The exhibition seeks to highlight the work of an artist fervently guided by a strong moral compass and showcase the deep connection between Lindheim’s personal belief system and the functional and artistic works she produced throughout her lifetime.”

Kindred Responses to Life features artworks from private and public collections including the Crocker Art Museum, Bolinas Museum, Mills College Art Museum and the Forrest L. Merrill Collection. The exhibition is curated by Sara Morris, Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics at the Crocker Art Museum.

The exhibition is brought to life with several public programs including Tour + Talk on November 2, 2024. The program features an intimate tour guided by Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics, Sara Morris, focusing on her curatorial approach to the display of Lindheim's ceramics. Then a talk from writer, editor, and scholar Abby Wasserman about Lindheim’s life and work as she discusses her research and her book Mary Tuthill Lindheim: Art & Inspiration.

EXHIBITION RELATED EVENTS AND PROGRAMS

Tour: Mary Tuthill Lindheim: Kindred Responses to Life
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

Drink and Draw
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20

Tour + Talk: Mary Tuthill Lindheim
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2

Media kit and press images are available here.

About the Artist

Lindheim was raised on a ranch in Tucson, Arizona, and over the course of her career studied art at the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute), the Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles, and the California College of the Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts), working under the mentorship of nationally celebrated sculptors Alexander Archipenko, Isamu Noguchi, and Jose De Creeft, as well as ceramist Antonio Prieto. The exhibition places her artwork in conversation with works by her contemporaries, illuminating aspects of her practice through diverse and shared approaches to material and process.

Throughout her life, Lindheim maintained a deep reverence for nature and the environment, often choosing to reside in remote locations that immersed her in natural surroundings. Her profound engagement with the natural world is evident in her use of local materials, such as clay, sand, and stones, which was inspired, in part, by Indigenous pottery traditions. Figures, especially female forms, are present across her work, serving as conduits for expressing a range of emotions and narratives, including sorrow, joy, hope, splendor, movement, and the human spirit.

Decades ahead of her time, Lindheim was a committed environmentalist and social activist. Despite Lindheim’s efforts to thwart the development of her Sausalito community, she was ultimately priced out after her waterfront home was condemned. She moved to the small coastal town of Bolinas where she lived for the rest of her life. Being off the grid and immersed in nature not only presented her with a constant source of inspiration, but her remoteness also afforded her time to advocate for social justice causes including anti-lynching legislation, veteran’s housing, support of Spanish refugees, and anti-Vietnam War causes.

Supplementing her income as an art educator, Lindheim did undertake commission-based work and participated in some of the most important ceramics exhibitions of the era, including the first International Exhibition of Ceramics in Cannes, France; Ceramic Nationals at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York; the Pacific Coast ceramic exhibitions at the City of Paris Rotunda Gallery in San Francisco; and the California State Fair in Sacramento. Additionally, she was an active member of numerous craft organizations, including the Association of San Francisco Potters and San Francisco Women Artists. She was also a founding member of the Designer-Craftsman of California and a key figure in the Marin Society of Artists and the Sausalito Art Festival.