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Collections

Jade Snow Wong
Ice Bucket1952

Not on view
Ceramic lidded vessel with rounded body, blush pink and cream lower glaze transitioning to dark speckled charcoal at the shoulder and lid rim, with a salmon-pink knob
Artist or Maker
Jade Snow Wong
United States, active California, San Francisco, 1922-2006
Title
Ice Bucket
Date Made
1952
Medium
Enamel on copper
Dimensions
Overall (Diameter) (Overall): 8 × 7 3/4 in. (19.69 cm) Overall (Diameter) (a): 2 × 7 3/4 in. (5.08 × 19.69 cm) Overall (Diameter) (b): 5 3/4 × 8 in. (14.61 × 20.32 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Katherine Z. Westheimer
Accession Number
M.2020.190.1a-b
Classification
Furnishings
Collecting Area
Decorative Arts and Design
Curatorial Notes

In her celebrated memoir Fifth Chinese Daughter (1950), Jade Snow Wong described her struggles to become an independent woman while respecting her traditional upbringing in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Her quest led her to establish her own studio, in which she successfully sold her handcrafted ceramics and enamels. This ice bucket, made as a gift for a longtime friend and former classmate from Mills College, exemplifies Wong’s stated desire to make “objects of beauty that could be used in the average home.”



(California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way," 2011-12)

Selected Bibliography
  • Kaplan, Wendy, ed. California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011.
  • Kaplan, Wendy, ed. Living in a Modern Way: California Design, 1930-1965. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2013.
Selected Exhibition History
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". October 1, 2011 - June 3, 2012
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". October 1, 2011 - June 3, 2012
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 20, 2013 - June 3, 2013
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 20, 2013 - June 3, 2013
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". July 6, 2013 - September 29, 2013
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". July 6, 2013 - September 29, 2013
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". November 2, 2013 - February 9, 2014
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". November 2, 2013 - February 9, 2014
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 29, 2014 - July 6, 2014
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 29, 2014 - July 6, 2014