South Bear School reopens for summer 2023

In a series of online talks on the history of design that I recently gave for Drake University's OLLI life-long education program, I spoke about the Bauhaus, which began in Germany in 1919. I discussed the influences of its teachers and students, some of whom emigrated to the US, where they joined existing schools or established their own. One of those schools was called Pond Farm, near Guerneville CA, where Marguerite Wildenhain worked with about twenty students each summer. 

Iowa potter Dean Schwarz and I were among her students in 1964. He returned in later years to be her assistant, and then established his own summer school, called South Bear School, near Decorah IA. He and his wife, writer Geraldine Schwarz, compiled and edited a huge, rich book about Wildenhain's life, titled Marguerite Wildenhain and the Bauhaus: An Eyewitness Anthology (South Bear Press, 2007), as shown in illustrations here. 

 

South Bear School, Decorah IA

The senior Schwarzes have retired, but there is a coalition of younger ones who are carrying on the tradition. In the coming summer (2023), they are again offering workshops at South Bear School, and the call for registration is out. More online information is here.

Artist Dean Schwarz and Family and Friends

In the fall of 1963, I began my senior year at a high school in a small town in northeast Iowa. A new teacher had been hired to teach art, and I soon began to work with him. As an artist, he was a painter at the time, but he would soon become an important American potter. That teacher’s name was Dean Schwarz. He was a primary mentor for me—we launched an art gallery, hitchhiked to New Orleans in the middle of winter, and, in 1964, spent the summer in Northern California, studying at Pond Farm Pottery with Bauhaus artist and author Marguerite Wildenhain.

Dean is 84 this year, and I am 76, and our friendship (along with my great fondness for his wife, author Gerry Schwarz) has continued, uninterrupted, all these many years. Most recently, it was a pleasure to be asked to design the card invitation and a photographic film tribute for a new exhibition of pots and his other creations at the Hearst Center for the Arts, in Cedar Falls IA. Titled DEAN SCHWARZ AND FAMILY AND FRIENDS, the exhibition begins on June 4 and continues through July 17, 2022.

There is a public reception on June 18, from 10:30 am to Noon. It is described as follows: Visit The Hearst to experience the world of Dean Schwarz through his work and the work of some of his family and friends. Collaborative ceramics by sons Gunnar and Lane Schwarz and grandchildren Marguerite, William and Sophie are featured alongside Jeff Bromley’s boxelder and soft maple furniture.

Dean Schwarz (© Emily Drennan)

Ceramic Art by Dean and Gunnar Schwarz