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Dora De Larios

Dora De Larios
Born 1933
Los Angeles
Nationality American
Education University of Southern California
Known for Ceramic art

Dora De Larios (born 1933) is an American ceramist and sculptor working in Los Angeles. She is also noted for her tile murals. She has received international acclaim for her unique style that expresses mythological and pan-cultural themes.

Born in Los Angeles to Mexican emigre parents, De Larios grew up in downtown Los Angeles near Silver Lake, where she was surrounded by Mexican and Nisei Japanese immigrants. This diverse community, as well as her childhood trips to the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, inspired her to create artwork that blended influences from ancient American and Japanese ceramics. She studied with prominent potters Otto and Vivika Heino and Susan Peterson at the University of Southern California. Her professors exposed her to the work of radical ceramic artists, notably Peter Voulkos, whose abstract work encouraged her to explore non-functional forms in clay. She graduated in 1957 with a major in ceramics and a minor in sculpture.

Upon graduation, De Larios set up an independent studio in Los Angeles and sold her work through venues that included Gump's in San Francisco. In her figural sculptures, she developed a distinct style that derived from traditional Japanese Haniwa. In the 1960s, artist and impresario Millard Sheets hired De Larios, along with other notable ceramists including Harrison McIntosh and Jerry Rothman, to design tiles for the Franciscan Ceramics division of Interpace in Los Angeles. Beginning in the late 1960s, she began experimenting with bronze, creating sculptures based on her personal experiences. Inspired by her participation in the Mask Festival at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, De Larios began experimenting with the mask form in the 1980s, drawing on religious and spiritual traditions from around the world.


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