Jonathan Jacobs

Jonathan Jacobs began his career as an AIA architect and worked at the prestigious firm of Gardner Daily in San Francisco. He left it all to become an award-winning ceramist who creates sculptural art objects of high temperature fired, glazed porcelain and stoneware. His designs are cool, minimal, almost egg shell thin and largely abstract while retaining a rhetorical connection to narrative forms such as bowls and vessels.

Jacobs' aesthetic combines the minimalism of Modernist architecture and sculpture with traditional Asian technique, blurring the line between these media. Inspired by Chinese Song Dynasty Imperial-ware of the tenth and eleven centuries, he is guided by one of China’s most brilliant Cultural periods.

Jacobs learned to employ the Song Dynasty artisan's technique of reduction firing at temperatures of 2350 degrees Fahrenheit, gradually starving the kiln of oxygen until chemical magic changes the nature of the various metal oxides and achieves subdued but rich colors like ox blood, the celebrated “sang de boeuf,” as well as celadon greens and blues. In keeping with Song Dynasty tradition his objects are monochromatic and un decorated. At such high temperature the glazes physically fuse with the clay bodies to create an indistinct line between glaze and clay.

Represented for many years by Gump’s Gallery in San Francisco, his work has been shown alongside many of the greatest ceramists in the world, many considered living treasures in their own cultures. We do not bestow such a designation in our culture, but if we did, I imagine Jonathan Jacobs would be worthy of consideration. 

Invitational Exhibitions:

The Oakland Museum: 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979 1980

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: 1979

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco CA: 1991. 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995

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