Richard Shaw is one of the most respected and widely collected artists in contemporary ceramics, internationally recognized for his masterful trompe l’oeil sculptures. Emerging from the San Francisco Bay Area art scene in the late 1960s, Shaw has spent decades refining an extraordinary ability to transform clay into remarkably convincing replicas of everyday objects—books, playing cards, tools, and other artifacts of daily life. His meticulously crafted works blur the line between reality and illusion, inviting viewers to question what is genuine and what is merely appearance. Drawing from mass culture and a rich vocabulary of found objects, Shaw creates intimate still lifes, complex figures, and deeply personal assemblages. Combining technical virtuosity, humor, and conceptual depth, he animates the ordinary with the imagination of a storyteller, breathing new life into the detritus of the studio. Through these layered compositions, Shaw explores themes of memory, identity, and the narratives embedded within the objects that surround us. BORN1941, Hollywood (Los Angeles), California, USA EDUCATIONMFA, Ceramics, University of California, Davis — 1968 BFA, San Francisco Art Institute — 1965 Studied briefly at New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University ACEDEMIC POSITIONSProfessor of Ceramics, University of California, Berkeley — 1987–2012 (later emeritus) Faculty, San Francisco Art Institute — 1966–1987 SELECTED AWARDSNational Endowment for the Arts Fellowship — 1971 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship — 1974 Visiting Artist Grant, Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, Paris — 1987 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, San Francisco Art Institute — 1988 Marin Arts Council Board Award — 2000 SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONSRichard Shaw: Ceramic Sculptures, B. Sakata Garo, Sacramento — 2014 Richard Shaw: Four Decades of Ceramics, Sonoma County Museum — 2010 Working Drawings from Studio Sketchbooks, Diablo Valley College — 2007 Trompe l’Oeil Ceramics, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge — 2003 Master’s Touch, Tempe Art Center — 1998 SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONSCrafting Modernism, Museum of Arts and Design, New York — 2012 Masters of Illusion: Trompe l’Oeil in America, Michigan State University — 2004 Something, Anything, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York — 2002 Altered and Irrational, Whitney Museum of American Art — 1995 PUBLIC COLLECTIONSShaw’s work is held in major museum collections including:Smithsonian American Art Museum (Renwick Gallery)San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtMuseum of Arts and Design, New YorkStedelijk Museum, AmsterdamNational Museum of Modern Art, TokyoOakland Museum of CaliforniaRacine Art Museum