LIVING WITH CLAY: The Julie and David Armstrong Collection

The Claremont Museum of Art is pleased to announce an exhibition that invites us to enter the home of ceramic collectors Julie and David Armstrong. Perhaps best known for having founded the remarkable American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, the Armstrongs’ love of clay is evidenced equally in their extensive private collection.

The exhibition, Living with Clay: The Julie and David Armstrong Collection, curated by Rody N. López, will be on view January 18 through April 20, 2019 at the Claremont Museum of Art, located in the historic Claremont Depot at 200 W. First Street.

The exhibition is generously sponsored by Art Braeger and Janell and Randall Lewis.

The opening reception will be on Saturday, February 2 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

The museum is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4:00 p.m., and on Art Walk, the first Saturday of every month, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. For more information, visit www.claremontmuseum.org.

About the Collectors

Julie and David Armstrong met while attending Pomona College and eventually settled in Claremont; David also holds an MFA (ceramics) from Claremont Graduate University. Julie is now retired from Foothill Country Day School, where she taught for many years and continues to teach a weekly art history class. David has long been an important member of the Claremont and Pomona business communities, and together, they founded AMOCA. The couple are well known for their philanthropy as well as their enthusiasm for collecting.

Over a period of sixty years, they have amassed a large and eclectic collection of contemporary paintings, decorative arts, and most impressively, ceramic art, for which they have an apparently insatiable passion. Included in the exhibition are original ceramics by such renowned artists as Rudy Autio, Ralph Bacerra, Frank Boyden, Tom Coleman, David Furman, Shoji Hamada, Robin Hopper, Harrison McIntosh, Mata Ortiz, Don Reitz Paul Soldner, Robert Sperry, Peter Voulkos, and Patti Warashina, among many others.

About the Exhibition

Curator Rody N. López is a graduate of Pomona College who served as an Associate Curator at AMOCA for several years and recently completed his MFA at California State University, Fullerton. For the Claremont Museum of Art, López has drawn on the Armstrong Collection section of his recently acclaimed exhibition Living with Clay: California Ceramics Collections at the Nicholas & Lee Begovich Gallery of CSUF. Staged to simulate the manner in which Julie and David Armstrong display their collection in their home, alongside paintings and furnishings, the exhibition reveals the integration of art in their daily lives while also saluting the collectors’ taste, ideas, and the uniqueness of their vision.  Within the walls of a public museum, thus, we are given a taste of the private environment of two dedicated, knowledgeable, and highly influential collectors.

LIVING WITH CLAY Press Release, Nov 20, 2018