When beloved Oakland artist and UC Berkeley Professor Jim Melchert died in June at age 92, he was a year into creating new work for a planned show at Gallery 16 at the invitation of gallerist Griff Williams. Now, the ceramist, sculptor and mentor to generations of artists is being celebrated at Gallery 16 in the exhibition “Still, The Meandering Path: Jim Melchert’s Final Works.”
The show was assembled around Melchert’s last finished artworks from his longtime studio. The broken and fired porcelain tile wall-mounted pieces are glorious centerpieces. Vivid color combinations and geometry in the work feel joyful, but elegantly restrained.
Gallery 16 also invited a group of well-known ceramists and other artists to contribute to the show. Curated by Nathan Lynch, these artists include Ashwini Bhat, Liz Hernández, Cathy Lu, Tucker Nichols, Gay Outlaw, Maria Porges and Wanxin Zhang. The combined generations represented in the show speak to the enormous reach and influence Melchert had in the art world (he was also the director of visual arts for the National Endowment of the Arts and the director of the American Academy in Rome.)
The show is a fitting tribute to an artist who helped make ceramics into the respected contemporary art form it is recognized as today.