In her own celebrated work, Australian ceramic artist Gwyn Hanssen Pigott nudges pale-glazed tableware forms into still-life groupings of bowls, bottles and cups. Individually familiar, the juxtaposed forms speak to one another and to the observer with surprising emotion.
When Ms. Pigott was invited to visit Freer Gallery ceramics storage to assemble groups from the gallery’s permanent collection, she chose at will from cases of Chinese, Korea, Japanese, and Near Eastern vessels. Ignoring date and place and focusing wholly on color, form, pattern, and relationship, her approach was curiously sympathetic to the taste of Charles Lang Freer, who had chosen most of the selected objects a century earlier. Ms. Pigott’s seven creations will gather seventy-two Freer ceramics in surprising new relationships.