Martha Longenecker

Ceramist, art educator and founder of Mingei International Museum, Martha W. Longenecker passed away on October 29, 2013. Born in Oklahoma City, her passing at age 93, Longenecker will likely be remembered for bringing Japanese folk art to San Diego, and beyond.

Longenecker worked as an artist-craftsman in ceramics, was professor of art at San Diego State University for 35 years, and she directed the Mingei Museum between 1978-2005. Ms. Longenecker established herself as an accomplished artist and educator. After receiving a B.A. in Art from the University of California at Los Angeles where she learned the art of pottery from renowned teacher and artist craftsman Laura Andreson, she attended Claremont Graduate School where she studied painting with famed California artist Millard Sheets and received an Art Education Credential and a Master of Fine Arts degree.

She set up her own ceramics studio in Claremont, California, where she made wheel-thrown stoneware forms which were exhibited and sold nationally through the Los Angeles and New York-based Dalzell Hatfield Galleries from 1944 to 1964. In 1955 San Diego State University asked her to develop the school’s ceramics program. During Martha’s 35-year tenure as Professor of Art (1955-1990), she taught the history of ceramics and design. She also directed the gallery program and supervised the University’s student art teachers.

Continuing post-graduate research included significant study in Japan under the guidance of the potter Shoji Hamada (1894–1978) and the contemporary potter Tatsuzo Shimaoka (1919–2007). Working in Japan gave her the opportunity to directly experience the teachings of art historian and aesthetician Dr. Soetsu Yanagi, whom she had met in 1952, and who coined the term mingei—art of the people.