ON VIEW | 2024
FEATURED EXHIBITIONS
JUN 21, 2024 – MAR 29, 2025
La Fondation d’Enterprise Bernardaud
Limoges, France
Featuring work by Peter Pincus
ARTWORKS & INSTALLATIONS
THETIS CONFINED
On view in PORTLAND VASE: MANIA AND MUSE | Crocker Art Museum | June 9 – September 8, 2024
THE INCOMPLETE COLLECTION
Solo Exhibition at Rochester Institute of Technology | Rochester, NY | August 18 – September 24, 2023
SCRATCH & SPIN AMPHORA
LOSING #422 (Group of 5 of the 15 Vessels)
ABOUT
b. 1982 Rochester, NY,
lives and works in Penfield, NY
Peter Pincus is well known for work that combines exquisite form and intense color through porcelain vessels and tile compositions. Driven by inquiry, his practice blends color theory, the history of decorative arts and cutting-edge technical experimentation in ceramics. As an artist and designer, Pincus continues to garner national attention for his research-based practice that includes the Wedgwood collection at the Birmingham Museum of Art (AL) and, most recently, an examination of several conceptual works by Sol LeWitt at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA).
Represented by Ferrin Contemporary since 2015, Pincus has participated in multiple exhibitions, including Glazed & Diffused (2015), Revive, Remix, Respond (2018), and two solo exhibitions, PETER PINCUS: Channeling Josiah Wedgwood (2018) and ART IN THE AGE OF INFLUENCE: Peter Pincus | Sol LeWitt (2020). Pincus has exhibited widely at galleries, art fairs and museums throughout the US. His work can be found in numerous private and public collections including the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art (Sedalia, MO), Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center (Tempe, AZ), Schien-Joseph International Museum (Alfred, NY) and The Arkansas Arts Center (Little Rock, AR). Pincus is the recipient of the Lewis Comfort Tiffany Award in 2017.
Pincus received both his BFA (2005) and MFA (2011) from Alfred University, Alfred, NY. He has been a resident artist at the Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino, CA and Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT, taught at Haystack School Mountain School of Craft and worked at the Genesee Center for Arts and Education in Rochester, NY as the Studio Manager and Resident Artist Coordinator. In Fall 2014, Peter joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Art at the School for American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology.
ON HIS WORK
As an early career ceramic artist, I am part of a lively and rapidly changing conversation in which the worlds of art, craft, and design are increasingly defined not only by their distinctions, but also by their similarities and relationships to one another. There is tremendous meaning in the transcendence of the pot to engage in all of these ideologies; object of substantial craftsmanship, object of use, object of design intellect, and object of conceptual metaphor.
I produce three-dimensional paintings out of pots. The big challenge is to study and make objects that have a distinct location in the home, using our familiarity toward them to instigate new discussions about the role of the vessel in our place and time. I focus on containers that are status symbols saved for special occasions, generally deemed distinct because of the value of what they hold rather than for what they are. But to me, in between such occasions, they become canvases that visually illustrate the defining spirit of the times. They are useful as well as opulent. But they can be so much more.
—Peter Pincus
“Obsession—not mine but Josiah Wedgwood’s—was the impetus for Peter Pincus: Channeling Josiah Wedgwood. The eighteenth-century English potter and entrepreneur was determined to patent the reproduction process of Etruscan pottery. His drive to claim intellectual ownership over these ancient vessels is one of his many fixations that brought me to Birmingham, Alabama and the Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood Collection at the Birmingham Museum of Art.
In examining the work I began to understand the diversity of thought and skill involved in Wedgwood’s pottery production. I concluded that the best way to understand fully his obsession was to combine intellectual understanding and the making process by mimicking his mimicry.
This exhibition is an extension of my lectures and discussions on Wedgwood’s innovative thinking as it related to clay and the Industrial Revolution and how that could serve as a context for viewing contemporary ceramics, culture, and technology. This body of work is a preliminary attempt to challenge myself by consciously linking this study of history with my creative practice.”
“There is a big difference between being influenced by and being in conversation with. As an artist and educator, I am eager to acknowledge those who have elevated my thinking through their work, and to consciously engage with influence as a productive, and insightful element of studio practice. This exhibition is an opportunity to celebrate LeWitt’s approach to making as a foundation, from which I can challenge myself to see new things and grow.”
– Peter Pincus
CURRENT & RECENT EXHIBITIONS
2024 | Group Exhibition at Crocker Art Museum | Sacramento, CA
Feature of new works by Peter Pincus
June 9 – September 8, 2024
2024 | Group Exhibition at La Fondation d’Enterprise Bernardaud | Limoges, France
Feature of new works by Peter Pincus
June 21, 2024 – March 29, 2025
2024 | International Ceramic Art Fair 2024 | Toronto, ON
Feature works by Peter Pincus, Linda Sikora, & Jacqueline Bishop
May 23 – June 2, 2024
2023 | Solo Exhibition at Rochester Institute of Technology | Rochester, NY
Solo exhibition of old and new works
August 18 – September 24, 2023
2023 | Group Exhibition at The Art Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University | Willimantic, CT
Feature of new works by Peter Pincus
August 23rd – October 27th, 2023
2020 | Solo Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
Feature of works by Peter Pincus inspired by three of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, #340, #422 and #289, as seen first-hand in Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective at MASS MoCA.
July 11 – October 11, 2020
ON VIEW IN PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
ARKANSAS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | Little Rock, AR
PETER PINCUS, “A Familiar Kind of Riddle,” 2018, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation Collection: Purchase, Contemporaries Fund. 2021.008.001. John Polak Photography, courtesy of Ferrin Contemporary.
SELECT PAST EXHIBITIONS
ABSOLU.
La Fondation d’Enterprise Bernardaud | Limoges, France
June 21, 2024 – March 29, 2025
Featuring Peter Pincus
CALL SOL: The Enduring Legacy of Sol LeWitt
The Art Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT
August 23rd – October 27th, 2023
PETER PINCUS: The Incomplete Collection
RIT City Art Space | Rochester, NY
August 18 –September 24, 2023
ARE WE THERE YET?
Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 2, 2023
ART IN THE AGE OF INFLUENCE: Peter Pincus | Sol LeWitt
July 11 – October 11, 2020
PETER PINCUS: Channeling Josiah Wedgwood
NEWS & FEATURES
ARE WE THERE YET? Featured in the Berkshire Eagle
Peter Pincus in CHROMANIA at Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
MELTING POINT Featured in Destination Williamstown
Virtual Closing | ART IN THE AGE OF INFLUENCE: Peter Pincus | Sol LeWitt
ART IN THE AGE OF INFLUENCE | Notes from Director, Leslie Ferrin
Peter Pincus Featured in Everson Museum of Art’s Virtual Class
Peter Pincus Featured in the Berkshire Eagle
PETER PINCUS in Arteidolia, January 2019
PETER PINCUS Featured in The Berkshire Eagle, November 2, 2018
UPCOMING EVENTS
VIDEOS
As this unusual time has moved us all to new digital and virtual platforms, we’re happy to present our In-Progress News & Media Page on our website, which includes our Newsletter Archives, Press & Blog Posts, Director’s Notes, Instagram Feed & this Video Library.
Thank you to the Always Creative Peter Pincus for our Newest & Most Amusing Video Yet!
Artist Peter Pincus narrates this virtual tour of his 2020 exhibition, ART IN THE AGE OF INFLUENCE: Peter Pincus | Sol LeWitt, presented at Ferrin Contemporary’s gallery on the campus of MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA.
View Virtual Tour: ART IN THE AGE OF INFLUENCE: Peter Pincus | Sol LeWitt
Peter Pincus in conversation with Garth Johnson, Everson Museum of Art & Anne Forschler, Birmingham Museum of Art. The discussion will include a video tour of “ART IN THE AGE OF INFLUENCE: Peter Pincus | Sol Lewitt” at Ferrin Contemporary with director Leslie Ferrin on the campus of MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA. Pincus will be speaking from his studio in Rochester, NY.
View Ferrin Contemporary & Peter Pincus | In the Everson Museum’s Online Classes & Studio Tours
“This talk is part of a series of events centered around the ECSU gallery exhibition ‘Cal Sol: The Enduring Legacy of Sol Lewitt.‘ Here, Rochester-born artist and Professor Peter Pincus delves into the many influences that have shaped his artistic process. Pincus discusses the innovative courses he teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology, highlighting the intertwining of his identity as both a teacher and an artist.”
INQUIRE
Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.
If interested in lists of all works and series: Send us a message