Jo Lauria at a collector’s residence, seated in a Wendell Castle hand-crafted chair.
Photo courtesy of Jane Feldman
Jo Lauria at her residence, in front of her ceramic display.
Photo created by Shelly Simon & Jane Feldman
About Jo
Jo Lauria is a Los Angeles-based curator, author, and educator. Her forward-thinking advocacy for the handmade has been rewarded with a lifetime of acclaimed projects. A specialist in craft, design, and decorative arts, Lauria is currently an Adjunct Curator of the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona, CA) and Faculty at Otis College of Art and Design. Many know her from her tenure as Curator of Decorative Arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where she organized the groundbreaking exhibition Color and Fire featuring the artists in LACMA’s 20th-century ceramic collection.
As a curator, her more than 25 national touring exhibitions and museum-based surveys showcase her sensitivity towards the integrity of materials, her respect for the undervalued and marginalized, including female and senior makers, and her zest for creative interplay. As an author, her significant publications in the field include over twenty survey books and monographs, a similar number of catalog essays and reviews, and nearly fifty lectures and symposia. Her most recent publication is Architectural Pottery: Ceramics for a Modern Landscape (Monacelli/Phaidon Press, 2024).
Her philosophy is to do projects that make her quiver, bring out the connections and visions in creative minds, and pay forward through collaboration and mentorship. She received degrees from Yale, Loyola Marymount, and Otis College of Art and Design, focusing on ceramic art.
Her honors include the American Ceramic Circle Book Award for Ralph Bacerra: Exquisite Beauty; the Silver Muse Award from the American Association of Museums for the documentary Color and Fire; and Honorary Lifetime Member of the National Council for Education of Ceramic Art (NCECA). She is also Board Vice President of The Marks Project, a non-profit arts organization to document the signatures of ceramic artists post-World War II.
Selected Honors and Awards
Talking Architectural Pottery (2025), a panel discussion developed and moderated by Jo Lauria, curator of the exhibition Architectural Pottery: Ceramics for a Modern Landscape (August 17, 2024–March 2, 2025), hosted by AMOCA. A historic conversation to promote the underrecognized history and legacy of the Architectural Pottery Company, including the son of the founders, staff members of the company, and passionate collectors of the material.
Center for Craft Exhibition Research Grant (2021) for Breaking Ground: Women in California Clay, AMOCA. As the Center’s first and longest-running grant program, the Craft Research Fund is dedicated to encouraging innovative research on critical issues in craft theory and history and investigating neglected questions on craft history and criticism. Lauria served as a curator and essayist of the historical sections of the exhibition and publication.
American Ceramic Circle Book Award Recipient (2016) for Ralph Bacerra: Exquisite Beauty. Selected as representative of the organization’s goal to recognize “English-language publications that advance the study of ceramics, present new scholarship and interpretations, and, in doing so, become important and standard references in the field.”