Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts

ABOUT

In her former living room and bedroom, visitors can explore the Permanent Collection—Beatrice Wood‘s ceramics, works on paper, and folk art—alongside photos, memorabilia, and panels tracing her life story. The adjacent library and study center houses her art books along with further photos and memorabilia. Just beyond, her studio remains preserved exactly as she left it, wheels, kilns, tools, glaze materials, and plaster molds intact, offering a glimpse into her working world. Outside, the grounds showcase her beloved cacti and succulents, with ample space to wander or simply sit and take in the surrounding 500 acres of Happy Valley.

SPECIAL RESOURCES

“Living on Happy Valley Foundation land, the vibrations are wonderful. I cannot define it, but I can feel it. My home was built on a hilltop overlooking magical mountains and I spend hours in my workshop overlooking Topa-Topa, the magnificent mountain which takes on a wondrous deep pink glow at sunset. After so many years of challenges, my life is idyllic, full of joy and contentment. With my dear friend Rosalind nearby, young people continually calling, and a comfortable bed with a good lamp for late night reading, I want for nothing.”

— Beatrice Wood

Beatrice Wood (1893–1998)

Beatrice Wood was an important contemporary artist, craftsperson and writer. Her life ran the course of the 20th century and included many of the figures that shaped it. She began her career as an artist as part of the New York Dada Movement, and began working in ceramics at the age of 40. Ultimately, her genius was in the marriage of wide-ranging influences in her work. The spirit of Dadaism, impact of Modernism, embrace of Eastern philosophy, influence of folk art and even the ornament of ethnic jewelry were all combined in her ceramics. Her work reveals a mastery of form, combined with a preference for the naïveté of folk art. Ultimately, it is impossible to separate her life experiences from the work she created, as she truly mastered the art of a life.

_{Glaze chemicals on a shelf in Wood’s Studio. Photograph courtesy Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts.}

_{Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Winter. Photograph courtesy Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts.}

_{A detail from Beatrice Wood’s Studio. Photograph courtesy Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts.}

LEARN MORE

In 1974, Beatrice Wood built a home and studio on Happy Valley Foundation land, beginning a new phase of her life, and setting the stage for the creation of the art center that had been envisioned by Annie Besant with the purchase of the land in 1927. A few years later, Dada scholar Francis Naumann visited, delighted to meet someone who had been part of the New York Dada Movement, who could share memories and details of events that happened eight decades earlier. He was also charmed by her, impressed with the work she continued to create, and set out to assist in getting her early works on paper, and later her sculptural works, exhibited in museums.

In 1981, the Garth Clark Gallery in Los Angeles presented their inaugural exhibition – a one-person exhibition of Wood’s ceramics. Beatrice Wood was 88 years-of-age. Two years later, Garth Clark Gallery opened a second location in New York City, and Beatrice continued to have exhibitions of new work at each gallery every year, until she passed away at 105-years-of-age.

Along with creating ceramics in her studio, and works on paper while relaxing in her showroom, Beatrice Wood focused on writing her autobiography, I Shock Myself, while living in her Happy Valley home. It was published when she was 92 years of age. While doing research for the script of his film Titanic, James Cameron was introduced to the book. He had already begun working on the character of Rose, but the life of Beatrice Wood added considerable insight. After all, she would have been crossing the ocean in the same sense of style, at the same point in history, as she summered in Europe with her wealthy parents. The character of Rose, her mother, and Jack Dawson were all influenced by Beatrice’s life.

James Cameron came to visit Beatrice in her Happy Valley home in celebration of her 105th birthday, gifting her a VHS cassette copy of the film. Having been alive at the time of the great tragedy of the Titanic sinking, Beatrice only watched the first half, noting that, “the ending was going to be sad, and it was too late in life to be sad.” Beatrice passed away a week later.