{{Short description|American artist (born 1937)}} {{Infobox person | name = Roberta Griffith | image = 1989 Roberta Vivika Otto ADJ.jpg | caption = Roberta Griffith (left), with Vivika and Otto Heino (1989) | other_names = | birth_name = Roberta Jean Griffith | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1937}} | birth_place = Hillsdale, Michigan, U.S. | education = University of Michigan,<br> Chouinard Art Institute,<br> Southern Illinois University | occupation = artist, professor | employer = Hartwick College (1966–2008) }} '''Roberta Jean Griffith''' (born 1937) is an American contemporary artist working in ceramics, painting, drawing, and glass. She is Professor Emerita of Art at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York; where she taught art from 1966 until 2008. She resides in Hawaii and New York state.
==Early life and education==
Born in Hillsdale, Michigan in 1937, Griffith began drawing and painting in early childhood, winning a competition for a self-portrait when she was ten years old.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Karikehalli|first=Shweta|url=https://www.thedailystar.com/news/local_news/past-professor-donates-papers-to-college/article_d0d64826-d218-5962-a1b8-b1abd6c1b4f5.html|title=Past professor donates papers to college|date=October 8, 2019|work=The Daily Star|access-date=March 18, 2020}}</ref> Her mother and father, a psychologist and steel vendor respectively, supported her interest in art from a young age. Griffith studied drawing and painting at the University of Michigan, withdrawing after two years.<ref name=":1">''Roberta Griffith: A Retrospective.'' Artworks Publications, Otego, NY. 2003 {{ISBN|0-9722424-0-6}}</ref> She later earned a BFA from the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, CA in 1960 and an MFA degree from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL in 1962.
==Work==
Griffith’s work combines materials into mixed media installations to tell stories. Griffith has stated that she seeks “to evoke associations of places and their cultural manifestations that [she has] come across through research and world travel, as well as allude to human foibles, human mortality, the cyclical nature of life and death, and universal natural or man-made shortcomings."<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=https://www.honolulumuseum.org/pages/13568-roberta_griffith|title=Artists of Hawai'i 2013|date=September–November 2013|website=Honolulu Museum of Art|access-date=March 18, 2020}}</ref>
==Exhibitions==
The first solo show of Griffith's paintings was at the Aspen Gallery in Aspen, Colorado in 1958.<ref name=":1" /> Individual exhibitions of her work have appeared at the Yager Museum at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY (1967, 1969, 1994, 2003) 2 Rivers Gallery at the Roberson Museum and Science Center in Binghamton NY (1977), Lycoming College Art Gallery in Williamsport, PA (1981), John Grosvenor Gallery at the State University of New York at Cobleskill (1982), Center Galleries in Albany, NY (1984, 2001), The Art Center Gallery at Endicott College in Beverly, MA (1985), and Winifisky Gallery at Salem State College in Salem, MA (1992).<ref name=":1" /> Griffith has had solo exhibitions at the Kauai Museum in Lihu’e (2010) and the Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu (2017).<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://honolulumuseum.org/art/exhibitions/16322-roberta_griffith_unpleasant_conversations/|title=Roberta Griffith: Unpleasant Conversations|date=July–November 2017|website=Honolulu Museum of Art|access-date=March 18, 2020}}</ref> She has had individual exhibitions at Spanish institutions including the Celler D’en Climent in Gerona (1963), L’Escola Massana in Barcelona (1964), Ateneo de Madrid in Madrid (1964), Camarote Granados Gallery in Barcelona (1974), and the Museu de Ceramica in Barcelona, Spain (1999).<ref name=":1" />
==Collections==
Griffith’s work has been collected by public institutions in the United States, including The American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA and Honolulu Museum of Art, where she was a featured artist in ''[https://www.honolulumuseum.org/pages/13568-roberta_griffith Artists of Hawai’i 2013]'';<ref name=":2" /> the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY; the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, MO, and the Roberson Museum and Science Center in Binghamton, NY.<ref name=":1" /> Griffith’s work is also housed in international collections, including the Museu de Ceramica, Barcelona, Spain; [https://claymuseum.dk/ CLAY Keramikmuseum] in Grimmerhus, Denmark;<ref name=":2" /> the Yingge Ceramics Museum in New Taipei City, Taiwan; and the Yixing Ceramics Museum in Yixing, China.<ref name=":0" />
==Grants and awards==
Griffith received a Fulbright Grant to study art in Spain between 1962 and 1964 and a National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute grant in 1991.<ref name=":3" /> She received the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution’s American Heritage Award for Women in the Arts in 2018.
==Literature==
''Roberta Griffith'' (2003) was published in collaboration with the artist to accompany a retrospective exhibition at the Yager Museum. Griffith is the North American correspondent for ''[http://www.revistaceramica.com/ Revista Ceramica]'' (Madrid, Spain) and a regular contributor.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Griffith|first=Roberta|date=2019|title=Dean McRaine: El Ceramista psicodelico|url=http://www.revistaceramica.com/Revistas_atrasadas_pdf/Revista_Ceramica_151.pdf|journal=Ceramica|volume=151|pages=65–67}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Griffith|first=Roberta|date=2017|title=La Ceramica Yixing en China|url=http://www.revistaceramica.com/Revistas_atrasadas_pdf/Revista_Ceramica_146.pdf|journal=Ceramica|volume=146|pages=62–64}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Griffith|first=Roberta and Antonio Vivas|date=2015|title=ralph bacerra|url=http://www.revistaceramica.com/Revistas_atrasadas_pdf/Revista_Ceramica_139c.pdf|journal=Ceramica|volume=139|pages=17–19}}</ref>
==References== <references />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffith, Roberta}} Category:1937 births Category:Living people Category:American contemporary artists Category:Hartwick College faculty Category:People from Hillsdale, Michigan Griffith, Roberta Category:Southern Illinois University alumni Category:National Endowment for the Humanities Category:Artists from Michigan Category:20th-century American artists Category:20th-century American women artists Category:21st-century American artists Category:21st-century American women artists Category:American women academics