Rhoda LeBlanc Lopez

Rhoda LeBlanc Lopez attended Detroit Art Academy (ca. 1933) and Wayne University (ca. 1934) prior to her time at Cranbrook Academy of Art (ca. 1948-1950) where she studied with Maija Grotell and Daniel Rhodes. Ms. Lopez began exhibiting her work in regional and national shows as early as 1949. She established the ceramic department at the Summer School in Saugatuck, Michigan in 1949, and from 1951 until 1959 was an instructor at the Ann Arbor Potters Guild in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Born in Cuba, Rhoda’s husband Carlos came to the U.S. in 1919, where he spent a year studying in Chicago before coming to Detroit for three years of study at the Detroit Art Academy. During the Depression he painted murals for post offices in Paw Paw, Plymouth, and Birmingham as well as scenes of industry and war for other government agencies. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1945 and taught during the summers at Oxbow Summer School of Art. While Carlos Lopez lived in South America, Cuba and Spain, he learned how to paint in Detroit. After two years of illness Carlos Lopez died on January 6, 1953, at the age of 44, in Ann Arbor from a pulmonary embolism.

Lopez worked with Carlos researching and executing mural projects. In Birmingham, she reportedly sketched city residents whose portraits would be inserted into the post office mural. The couple also collaborated in ceramics, creating plates, pots, and bowls that Carlos decorated with kings, archers, and animals such as kangaroos, fish skeletons, and 3-headed birds. Between 1948-1952, they entered competitions as a team, Lopez and Lopez, in Michigan Arts and Crafts exhibitions in Detroit, winning praise and awards for their collaborations. Rhoda also exhibited independently in the Regional Exhibition for Designers and Craftsmen U.S.A. (1953) and in the annual Michigan Arts and Crafts exhibitions between 1953-57.

After the loss of her husband, Rhoda worked as a medical illustrator for the University of Michigan Medical School (1953-1959). She moved to San Diego in 1959 and reportedly worked at Mira Costa Junior College shortly after arriving (1960-64).

Ms. Lopez’s children, Jon and Carol, learned to paint (reportedly before they could walk) and pursued careers in art and education. Rhoda and Carlos’ son, Jon, born in Detroit (1940), received his art education at Antioch College, the University of Michigan, and UCLA. Jon studied in Europe before settling in California. His work has been exhibited in numerous juried shows, and in one-person shows in California, Italy, and Spain. When he returned to Ann Arbor in 1960, his paintings were well-honed and representational in a style very much akin to his father's post-World War II period. Jon later left Ann Arbor to pursue a career in art and art education.

Rhoda joined the faculty of the La Jolla School of Arts (at the Art Center in La Jolla), when the short-lived institution was at its peak. Here she taught alongside Fred Holle, Guy Williams, Beatrice Levy, Kay Whitcomb and Mac McClain. As Ceramist in Residence, her work was exhibited at the Art Center in a solo show as well as annual faculty exhibitions. Her teaching style, refined, and with extensive academic background, contrasted sharply with Mac McClain’s, who had taught the pottery classes until her arrival. McClain had been in the first class taught by Peter Voulkos at the Otis Art Institute, and represented a non-dogmatic instructional method as well as the early adaptation of Abstract Expressionism to ceramic art.

After the closing of the Art Center School in 1964, Lopez was the only instructor to transition into teaching extension classes for the University of California, which were held in the same studio/classrooms at the (then) re-named La Jolla Museum of Art. While these classes were crucial to Lopez's career, she also taught at her home-studio in Pacific Beach. In 1969, Lopez opened the Clay Dimensions studio, on Adams Avenue in University Heights, to accommodate both the extension students as well as local potters.

While she continued to exhibit in major national competitions and invitationals like those held at the Wichita Art Association, the Everson Museum, Scripps College and the California Design series at the Pasadena Museum of Art, in San Diego Rhoda Lopez showed with the Allied Craftsmen. As a juried member of this local group, Lopez had regular opportunities to showcase her creative output at the Fine Arts Gallery during the Allied Craftsmen’s annual Spring Exhibition. Although she never abandoned more traditional potter’s wares, the work she exhibited began to demonstrate a new emphasis on panels of textured bricks and sculptural tiles for architectural installation.

Between 1963-64, when examples of her larger but relatively simple, grid-based projects were first published, to 1968, Lopez would dramatically refine this concept, ultimately producing massive and complex fountain walls of sculptural stoneware with organic, plant and insect-inspired motifs. Fountain walls exhibited in the late 1960s and early 1970s were given titles like “Vandalized Nature” and “Survival of the Root.” She worked intimately with some of San Diego’s most progressive architects and was commissioned for projects in private residences and public buildings.

Ms. Lopez retired in 1983 handing Clay Dimensions (now Clay Associates) over to her associate and collaborator Gerald Thiebolt. A member of Allied Craftsmen of San Diego, Southern California Designer Craftsmen and the San Diego Art Guild, Rhoda LeBlanc Lopez died on New Year’s Day 1993 at age 79 after a long, fruitful life and career.

Partial List of Works:

All Saints Lutheran Church
6355 Radcliffe Drive, University City
*baptismal font

All Souls Episcopal Church
1475 Catalina Boulevard, Point Loma
*water wall and urn

Best Western Motel
Old Town San Diego
*clay mural

Crowley Residence
Los Altos Hills, California
*fireplace in this Sim Bruce Richards designed home

Fine Medical Center
4th Avenue, San Diego
*water wall; building demolished and water wall relocated

Fine Residence
Mt. Helix
*two fireplaces in this Sim Bruce Richards designed home

Kirk Breedlove Memorial and Open Air Meditation Chapel
First Presbyterian (or Trinity) Church
Spring Valley

First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego
4190 Front Street, Hillcrest
*various projects

Psychiatric Office Building for Furman, Shipman and Baran (1968)
6310 Alvarado Court, College Area
*large ceramic planter and panel of sculptured bricks

San Diego Juvenile Hall
2801 Meadow Lark Drive, Kearney Mesa
*two large murals

Stephens Residence
Orchard Bend Road, Poway
*fireplace in this Sim Bruce Richards designed home

Macy Residence
3919 La Cresta Drive, Point Loma
*fireplace

Deborah Szekely Residence
Mission Hills
*water wall

Weinberg Residence
Calistoga Place, San Diego Country Estates
*garden posts, front door surround, fireplace and garden pots for this Sim Bruce Richards designed home

Bryan Worthington Remodel
California Street, Mission Hills
*fireplace for this Sim Bruce Richards designed home

Participation in Exhibitions

All American, New York
Allied Craftsmen Annual Exhibitions, San Diego
Allied Craftsmen Council, Seattle
Art Center La Jolla – solo show (1960), Faculty Exhibitions and Membership Exhibitions
Ceramic Nationals, Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY
Decorative Arts and Ceramics Exhibitions, Wichita Art Assn.
Detroit Artists Market Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Michigan (1951)
Detroit Institute of Arts
Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego
Jefferson Gallery, La Jolla
Leonard Linns, Chicago (1953)
Little Gallery, Birmingham Michigan
Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona, CA. 1952
Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters
Michigan Craftsmen, Detroit, MI
Oakland Art Museum
Pasadena Art Museum, California Design 8,9,10 and 11 (1962-1971)
Scripps College Ceramics Annuals
Southern California Exposition “Crafts for Contemporary Living", Del Mar (1960)
Three Artists, Ann Arbor, Michigan
University of Wisconsin

Work in Collections

Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa
Detroit Art Institute
Mrs. Edsel Ford
Mrs. Edgar Kaiser
Scripps College, Claremont
University of Wisconsin
Various Private Collections

Sources

1. Carol Lopez, Daughter
2. Vargas, George, (Ph.D.) "Carlos Lopez: A Forgotten Michigan Painter." JSRI Occasional Paper #56. The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 19
3. Smithsonian Archives of American Art Papers, 1953-1973 [(54 items), including 4 letters; biographical data from the 1973 exhibition catalog California in Clay; 16 photographs of Lopez, her ceramics, and her works of art; and printed matter including publications, articles, and newspaper clippings. Microfilm roll 2105, frames 1-139. Originals privately owned].
4. Detnews.com “Detroit is fertile ground for art” By Vivian M. Baulch / The Detroit News Carlos Lopez, 1908-1953
5. Gerald Thiebolt Clay Associates
6. La Jolla School of Arts Faculty Exhibition 1961 catalog
7. ObjectsUSA