Unearthed: The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It

August 30, 2022 – December 16, 2023

Nora Eccles Harrison is a relatively unknown figure in the history of ceramics in the United States, and yet her impact on the field of ceramics in the western United States is immense.

Unearthed: The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It is an exhibition featuring approximately 292 ceramic works of art in the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) collection of 1500 ceramics. The selection of ceramics for the book and exhibition intentionally highlight both recognized and under-recognized artists, women artists, influential women ceramics educators, and Native American ceramicists with the intention of providing a revised historiography of ceramics in the western United States, including one that brings forth Nora Eccles Harrison’s role in ceramics history.

While ceramics and ceramics history is more well documented and contextualized in comparison to other areas of craft in the United States, however this exhibition will shift the narrative of ceramics by intentionally highlighting artists who deserve more recognition and have yet to be contextualized within the broader ceramics history, while also including recognized and renowned ceramicists in the field.