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Robert A. Ellison Jr. said it started with a white ceramic plate with blue rabbits on the rim. He saw this about 60 years ago in a Greenwich Village shop on one of the Manhattan walkways, at the time trying to establish himself as an abstract painter.
“It was like my hand was stretched out—it wasn’t a conscious process,” he recalled decades later. “So I thought, even though I didn’t know anything about Dedham, maybe I’d be a Dedham collector.
Indeed, Dedham became a collector of tableware as well as countless other ceramics and trained himself until he became an authority on the art of ceramics. Mr. Ellison has amassed an enviable collection and in 2009 He promised to gift more than 300 American ceramic works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This followed in 2013 another gift This time to the museum. European partsmade another donation of modern and contemporary ceramic works last year.
The museum said it has donated more than 600 works in total, transforming the Met’s humble ceramic collection into a formidable collection.
“This is a transformative gift – that’s the word for it,” said Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, curator of the American decorative arts at the museum, and Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang curator. “This is a truly lasting and important legacy he has achieved.”
Mr. Ellison died on July 9 in Manhattan. He was 89 years old. His wife, artist Rosaire Appel, said the cause was a cerebral hemorrhage.
Met opened in February “Shapes from Nowhere: Ceramics from the Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection” An exhibition of more than 75 works drawn from his last gift.
“The show prominently represents one’s passionate vision while also expanding the art history narrative,” said Roberta Smith. wrote in a review at The New York Times.
With the gift’s focus on modern and contemporary works, he added, “this latest act of generosity leads the museum into the living future.”
Robert Anderson Ellison Jr. was born on May 14, 1932, in Dallas and grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. His parents, Robert and Margaret (McCracken) Ellison, owned the Ellison Furniture and Carpet Company there, which was founded by his grandfather in 1888.
Mr. Ellison’s father died before he was 2 years old.
“My mom decided to keep the job with hired managers and wait until I grew up so I could continue my dad’s mission,” Frelinghuysen told the magazine “American Art Pottery,” a book published by Martin Eidelberg and Adrienne Spinozzi. By the Met in 2018, when Mr. Ellison’s promised gift in 2009 was officially delivered to the museum.
After serving in the Navy during the Korean War, Mr. Ellison enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin to study business administration, then transferred to the University of Miami, where he failed to stay in business school for long and dropped out. To sail to the Bahamas and elsewhere. He eventually returned to the University of Texas, but his perspective changed: When he graduated in 1958, he earned a degree in philosophy.
He also married Nancy Harrell in 1957 and after graduating they spent a year in New York, where he studied art. He credits her for introducing him to the art world and encouraging him to try painting. They returned to Fort Worth and Mr. Ellison indeed ran the family furniture business for several years and also opened a gallery. In 1962, however, the family sold the business and Mr. Ellison and his wife returned to New York, buying a penthouse on the Lower East Side.
Fascinated by abstraction, he continued to paint and also honed his photography skills. However, his ceramic collection soon began to attract his attention. He likened searching for parts in stores and flea markets to the activities stemming from his Texas upbringing.
“I learned the ways to hunt and fish early from various family members,” he said in a 2018 interview. “I like the anticipation and surprise that is part of these activities, which I believe may be a factor in my collecting drive.”
As Mr. Ellison trusted his tastes and learned about the psychic as he progressed, the pieces began to pile up. A 1972 book edited by Robert Judson Clark, “The Arts and Crafts Movement in America: 1876-1916,” and two years later, “Art Pottery of the United States” by Paul Evans, provided him with a context for his hobby.
“The cat came out of the bag: I was collecting something called ‘Art pottery’,” he wrote in an essay in “Shapes From Nowhere,” the catalog of the current exhibition. “I continued knowing that I was one of the first wave of collectors to rediscover this pottery from my grandmother’s time.”
His collection has become much more adventurous than the first Dedham plate, encompassing all kinds of objects from the traditional to the abstract. He particularly admired the work of George Ohr, who made eccentric vessels that evoked the works of artists like Picasso in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2006 Mr. Ellison published a monograph titled “George Ohr, Art Potter: The Apostle of Individuality” illustrated with his own photographs.
His first marriage ended in divorce. He had moved to Greenwich Village in 1990 and he and Mrs Appel were married in 1994. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter and two grandchildren from his first marriage, Hillary Ellison.
The Met’s French director, Marina Kellen, Max Hollein, said Mr Ellison’s donations will enable the museum to “duly celebrate the many great artists working in this medium.”
“Bob Ellison was a visionary collector and an unmatched champion of the ceramic arts,” he said via email. “He was a true pioneer for this medium.”
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