American Museum of Ceramic Art

About

The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) is an art museum for ceramic art, located in Pomona, California. Founded in 2003 as a nonprofit organization, the museum exhibits historic and contemporary ceramic artwork from both its permanent collection of 10,000 objects and through temporary rotating exhibitions. The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) was founded in Pomona, California in 2003 by David Armstrong, a Pomona businessman and ceramic artist. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The museum was first located in a Pomona storefront. In 2010, Armstrong purchased a two-story building, the former headquarters of Pomona First Federal Savings and Loan, which was designed by Benjamin Hall Anderson in 1956. The Anderson building houses a legacy mural in the interior by the Southern California artist Millard Sheets. The museum was relocated into the larger building in 2011. In 2014, AMOCA hired Beth Ann Gerstein to serve as the executive director. Gerstein joined AMOCA after a twenty-year tenure at The Society of Arts and Crafts of Boston. Gerstein succeeds founding executive director Christy Johnson who retired in 2013. From 2004 to her retirement in 2013, Johnson facilitated a diverse, five-exhibition-a-year schedule. While at AMOCA, Johnson was involved with the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative, producing a critically acclaimed exhibition, Common Ground: Ceramics in Southern California (1945-1975), and book of the same title. The museum's founder, David Armstrong, moved to Pomona, California with his family in 1944. His father, David S. Armstrong, opened a furniture and appliance business at 150 East Third Street. Armstrong earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pomona College in 1962 and while earning his degree, he also studied with ceramic artist Paul Soldner at nearby Scripps College. In 1969, Armstrong converted the family furniture business into Armstrong's Gallery which featured limited edition ceramic collectibles and specialized in porcelain figurines and collector plates. Armstrong began producing porcelain collector plates in the early 1970s. He generated a series of collector plates in collaboration with comedian Red Skelton, who was also a painter known for portraying clowns, in 1975. For 27 years, Armstrong produced and distributed Red's limited edition ceramic collectibles through the use of ceramic decals fired onto porcelain. Armstrong's ceramic products included ceramic baseball cards and plaques, along with elaborate gold borders on collector plates to enhance the artist's design. In 1993, he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in ceramics from Claremont Graduate School studying with Paul Soldner. Around the year 2000, Armstrong shifted the focus of his gallery towards contemporary studio ceramics. He closed Armstrong's Gallery in 2014 to focus on AMOCA. AMOCA's permanent collection consists of more than 10,000 pieces and includes California pottery, Southern California ceramics and dinnerware, Mettlach ceramics, industrial ceramics, factory made ceramics, ancient vessels from the Americas, fine porcelains of Asia and Europe, and functional and sculptural contemporary ceramics. AMOCA's Mettlach collection was donated by Robert D. and Colette D. Wilson, collectors of Mettlach pieces who grew their holdings over a 30-year period. AMOCA contains a 3,000+ piece Mettlach Collection, one of the largest collections of Mettlach wares (dating from c. 1840–1915) in the world. The museum regularly displays several hundred pieces from the permanent collection in the building's lower level. Robert Wilson, born in Southern California, started collecting at the age of thirteen from antique shops on Sepulveda Blvd in Los Angeles. At the beginning of WWII Robert Wilson started a Mettlac

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