Beyond craft

"Since the 1960s, Leatrice and Melvin Eagle have acquired decorative arts of the highest quality, beginning with contemporary ceramics and then expanding to works in other mediums produced from the 1940s to the present. Although primarily American in scope, their collection also encompasses significant pieces by acclaimed international artists. This book presents, for the first time, key highlights from the Eagle collection, which was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2010. At the core of the collection are stunning examples of ceramics by groundbreaking California-based artists, such as Robert Arneson, Ralph Bacerra, Viola Frey, David Gilhooly, Ron Nagle, Ken Price, Adrian Saxe, and Peter Voulkos. Also included is furniture by Wendell Castle and Sam Maloof; textile and fiber art by Olga de Amaral, John Garrett, John McQueen, and Cynthia Schira; and jewelry and metalwork by William Harper, Albert Paley, Earl Pardon, and Joyce J. Scott. This catalogue features works by about 40 key artists and an illustrated checklist of about 170 objects in the collection. "-- "This beautifully illustrated catalogue showcases for the first time the work of about forty leading American decorative artists of the mid- to late twentieth century represented in the Eagle collection"--

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.