Stan Welsh

American ceramist and teacher Stan Welsh received his BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1974 and his MFA at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1978. He has taught at San Jose State University, California since 1981. He has received several grants and awards, including an *NEA grant in 1986, a California Arts Council Grant in 1990.


In the 1980s Welsh made large, stylized narrative terracotta head forms with heavy incising and carving filled with brightly colored glazes. His work then became more monochromatic, incorporated other materials and referenced social and political issues. Starting in 2000 Stan began working on a series of heroic terracotta heads (4 or 5 times life scale) that are the most representational work he has done to date. These highly expressive heads with intense facial expressions representing a wide range of human emotions were featured in an exhibition at the Daum Museum in Missouri in 2004. The show was titled "Bay Area Ceramic Sculptors" and included the work of Arthur Gonzalez, Annabeth Rosen, Nancy Selvin and Stan Welsh.