In Memoriam: James Melchert

In Memoriam: Jim Melchert (1930-2023)

"Jim Melchert with Carissa Clark, performing a work by Michael Swaine, at CCA Ceramics, Feb 2020" photo credit: Anne Walsh

Anne Walsh
June 14, 2023

Jim Melchert, one of UCB Art Practice’s beloved Emeriti faculty and one of the most influential Bay Area artists of the last century, passed away on June 1. He was 93 and had lived a long and full life as an educator, mentor, administrator, artist, and lively thinker. Melchert leaves several important legacies, and many former students and mentees behind, including artists working across disciplines as varied as ceramics to poetry, music, and architecture. Berkeley’s Art Practice department was forever changed by the conceptual thinking practices Melchert introduced through his courses, particularly Introduction to Visual Thinking, but also by his expansive network of colleagues and admirers. 

Melchert came to Berkeley first as a graduate student in design in the late 1950s, eventually working as a studio assistant to the ceramic sculptor Peter Voulkos, and then joining the UCB Art Practice faculty in 1964. He taught sculpture and expanded practices until 1994, taking several long leaves to be the first ever artist heading the VIsual Arts division  of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1977-91, as well as directing the American Academy in Rome. 

Jim Melchert, close up view of "Riven/River", ceramic tile mural, commissioned work for SF International Airport, 2014.

After his retirement from UCB in 1994, Melchert produced sculpture prolifically, and worked as a generous and playful collaborator. Melchert made large wall-hung pieces from industrially made ceramic tile, intentionally exploiting their cracking patterns when dropped from short heights to determine his choices of glazing and re-placement of tiles in grids. These tile works could be discreet, individual wall sculptures, or meters-long wall murals, even swimming pool designs, which are simultaneously graphic, expressive, and conceptually rigorous all at once. Melchert had a life-long piano playing practice, as well as deep knowledge of Japanese ceramic tradition and language; his curiosity was boundless and his personal grace and modesty rare for such an accomplished creator.

Melchert’s work can be found in the homes of many artists and collectors, and in the collections of SFMOMA, the Oakland Museum of California, the LA County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Melchert is survived by three children, Christoph, David, and Renee; five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

To learn about Melchert’s life and art, read the extensive interview with Renny Pritikin in  the Archives of American Art; the 2020 interview with Constance Lewallen in the BRooklyn Rail.