Yale University Art Gallery Receives Collection Of Mann Carved Porcelain;

Booth Library Also Receives Piece For Permanent Collection

Yale University Art Gallery has honored Jean Mann of New Fairfield, who lived in Sandy Hook from 1964 until 1970 and remains a member of The Society of Creative Arts of Newtown (SCAN), by accepting nine of her porcelain pieces into its permanent collection.

Ms Mann has also presented C.H. Booth Library with a carved porcelain for its permanent collection. The library was given Dragon Boat, an intricate work that measures 1¾ inches long by 3/8 of an inch wide by 11/8  inches high and is very special to Ms Mann.

“This was done around 1978 in memory of a dear friend of mine, Hazel Crawley,” Ms Mann said this week. “She as a very talented Afro American friend.”

The piece will be displayed at the Main Street library once a secure form of presentation can be arranged, C.H. Booth Library Director Janet Woycik said on January 10.

“The piece is absolutely gorgeous,” Mrs Woycik said. “We’re thrilled to have it.”

Jean Mann has been carving and working with porcelain since 1970. In 2007 she began creating carved porcelain wall sculpture, and in 2008 her work was featured in an exhibition at C.H. Booth Library. “Jean Mann, MC: Carved Porcelain” presented pieces that were framed and matted and presented like a traditional painting or drawing might be, until viewers saw that they were in fact looking into a shadow box with a single carved piece, such as Carved Porcelain Dragonflies, or a series of pieces such as Life Cycle Of A Flower II, which is made up of six separate carved works.

It was while living in New York City during the 1960s that Ms Mann had the opportunity to see beautiful carved ivory and jade.

“It was inspiring,” she told The Newtown Bee in May 2008.

Working with clay began for Ms Mann with sculpture, progressed to a potter’s kick wheel, and finally porcelain.

“I’ve worked with [porcelain] since 1970 and cannot find anything it will not permit,” she said. “I’ve worked with other types of clay for over 50 years. Early carving in steatite and alabaster prepared me for carving porcelains. Since it softens while being fired, I find carving dry, unfired porcelain forms remain sharper after firing.”

In addition to carving and exhibiting porcelain, Ms Mann, now 84, also teaches and lectures.

Ms Mann has work permanently housed at universities in Connecticut and New York. Her work is also in 12 museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art (which has two pieces in its permanent collection), The Smithsonian, Yale University Art Gallery, and The Museum Haartz in Tel Aviv.

Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) has had one of Ms Mann’s porcelains, “Flambé Bowl,” in its collection for 20 years.

Late last year the museum sent two of its curators, Patricia Kane and David Sensabaough, to Ms Mann’s studio to select the pieces that were to be donated to YUAG’s collection. Ms Kane, the Friends of American Arts Curator of American Decorative Arts, and Mr Sensabaugh, the Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art at the Gallery, picked works that relate to both the American Decorative Arts and Asian Collections of the New Haven museum.

The curators chose Rat In A Carved Fishing Basket (netsuke and Ojime), Grasshopper On A Leaf (netsuke), Box with Cover of Carved Movable Links, Cover with A Mouse Eating Loose Links, Carved Dragon Boat (another memorial piece, this one honors Jessica Davidson and Marni Wood), Vase Within A Vase (which features a moving inner vase), Snuff Bottle with Undercutting and Basket (which also moves), and High Fired Copper Red Glaze on Porcelain Vase.

In a letter to Ms Mann, Ms Kane wrote that “it was a pleasure to see you again [after 20 years] and to have the opportunity to look at and handle your work. The skill with which you evoke Asian culture in many of your works makes them of interest to both of our departments.”

In a separate letter, YUAG Director Jock Reynolds wrote in part: “I want to thank you warmly for the gifts of nine pieces of your porcelain that includes netsuke as well as vessel forms that draw much of their inspiration from Asian design. We are delighted to have these works in the collection that will benefit both departments.”

The addition of her work to collections in Newtown and New Haven are the latest accolades for an award-winning artist who has been exhibiting her work since the very early 70s (one of her first exhibitions, in fact, was in 1972 at C.H. Booth Library).

“This is one of the most wonderful things that can happen,” Ms Mann said this week.

Ms Mann first taught in Connecticut in Newtown, on Blackman Road, in the house of Dorothy Thompson Wenblad. She now teaches out of her home studio, The Kick Wheel, which is at 154 Route 39. She welcomes visitors to her display room, by appointment; call her at 203-746-4969.