Rupert Julian Deese (Rummy)

1924 Born Guam

2010 Died Claremont, California

EDUCATION

1950 BA Applied Arts, Pomona College, Claremont, California

1957 MFA Ceramics, Claremont Graduate School, now University, Claremont, California

BIOGRAPHY

Rupert Deese is known for creating functional thrown forms of colored stoneware decorated with geometric repeat patterns. 

Deese studied ceramics with Richard Petterson and sculpture with Albert Stewart. For over 50 years Deese shared a studio with Harrison McIntosh, during this time they encouraged and often amused one another but their work remained distinctively their own.  Deese and McIntosh shared some glazes, kiln firings and both worked in cone 5 stoneware, however, each had their own unique stoneware clay body and forms.  In the case of Deese it was the walnut brown stoneware he used throughout his career.

Deese said of his work, “Considering the pot shape as primary, I have generally used simple, geometric elements—stripes, circles, incised lines and water-etched repeat patterns—to make the color and pattern of the finished piece”.  To create the surfaces he desired, Deese often sprayed the glaze onto his pots. In the early 1950s he was one of the first production potters to produce a catalog to facilitate merchandising his work to department stores.

For a number of years from the 1960s to the 1980s Deese, in addition to his studio practice, worked as a designer at Franciscan Ceramics primarily focused on dinnerware forms and related stainless steel cutlery and lead crystal.