Artist William Daley, with Gaurdian Vesica. 2005 Unglazed Stoneware.

Exeter, NH (September 1, 2011)—From Wednesday, September 14 to Saturday, October 22, the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy will present an exhibit byWilliam Daley, a leading figure in American studio ceramics. The exhibit entitled “William Daley – Selected Works: 1967 – 2010″ will include a selection of hand-built, unglazed stoneware vessels and drawings. An artist’s reception will be held at the gallery on Friday, September 16, 6:30-8 p.m., and a gallery talk is scheduled for Saturday, September 17 at 10 a.m. Daley will attend these events and will be available to answer questions about his work. The Lamont Gallery is in the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center on Tan Lane. All events are free and open to the public.

Born in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, Daley earned his bachelor’s degree in 1950 from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and his master’s degree in 1952 from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Daley has taught ceramics at state colleges in Iowa and New York; and has taught ceramics, drawing and industrial design for more than 30 years at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, which named him its first University Distinguished Professor in 1989. Daley has received the Regis Master Award and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, to name a few. He is the recipient of honorary doctorates awarded by the Maine College of Art and The University of the Arts. Daley has also received distinguished awards from the College Art Association, the American Craft Council, the Northern Clay Center andWatershed. Most importantly, he was a 2010 recipient of the prestigious PEW Fellowships in the Arts.

Daley’s work has centered on the vessel; what he describes as “a fixed form that can take all of your spirit and imagination.” Characterized by large-scale, monochromatic earth tones and geometric form, Daley’s works appear deceptively simple but with further study yield complex dualities emerging between inside and outside, concave and convex, positive and negative, form and symbol.

Daley says he works from an organic perspective: “Clay, like all primal materials, has personae. It holds secrets, embeds traditions, and feeds the boundaries that nurture change. Consequently, materials hold the inherent structure of ’the possible becoming.’

C-Venture Vesica. 2008 Unglazed Stoneware

“I enjoy the rush of moving toward a more telling vessel: One in which the duality of material and spirit whisper the symmetry of wonder we share together,” he says.

Daley’s works have been shown in galleries in numerous U.S. cities, the Netherlands, the U.K. and South Korea. His work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; the Renwick Gallery in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; The Stedelijk Museum’s Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; and the Clayarch Gimhae Museum, Gimhae, South Korea, to name a few.

Lamont Gallery Manager Sara Zela says, “It is the Lamont Gallery’s honor to host such a distinguished and influential artist and educator. Daley’s large-scale work will allow our students, faculty, [staff] and visitors an up-close-and-personal experience. The vessels and drawings illustrate the artist’s use of positive and negative space, and use of geometrical forms and symbols to produce complex and interesting relationships between the inside and outside.”

Gallery hours during the school year are: Monday 1-5 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed Sundays and school holidays. For more information, contact the Lamont Gallery at 603-777-3461. For directions to Phillips Exeter Academy, call 603-777-4330. A complete list of upcoming events is available on the Phillips Exeter Academy public events line at 603-777-4309; or visit the Academy’s community calendar or website.