Ménage

Ménage Synopsis

The artist Beatrice Wood, born in 1893, lived and worked until the age of 105. She was known variously as the Mama of Dada and the Queen of Luster. In 1917 she was part of the avant-garde Dada movement in New York. By the mid-1950s she had become a leading practitioner of luster-glazed ceramics. Wood moved from being a debutante to joining one of the most bohemian circles of her day.

Her work played with sexuality, but her aesthetic was often more comic than erotic. Now featured in over one hundred museums across the world, Wood is often quoted for her recipe to a long life: "art books, chocolates, and young men."

This book contains a collection of risqué drawings that document an intimate relationship she enjoyed with a married couple, Jack and Rhea Case, in Ojai, California, during the 1950s and 1960s. The collection was later acquired by Betsy Ross Rowland, who has sponsored this limited-edition book to benefit the ceramics educational programs of the nonprofit CFile Foundation.