“Just a few weeks after the opening of its newly renovated Fifth Avenue flagship in Manhattan, Tiffany & Co. will be relaunching its cafe, Blue Box, with a newly appointed chef, Daniel Boulud. Like the rest of the 10-story building, the cafe, which sits on the sixth floor, is designed by the architect Peter Marino, who commissioned the ceramist Molly Hatch to create its artwork. To adorn the walls, the artist assembled her signature hand-painted earthenware plates in the shape of brooches from the brand’s archives.” Quote from Angela Koh, New York Times Style Magazine, May 11, 2023
Parall(elles) highlights the breadth and complexity of design pieces made by American and Canadian women by situating these works against the backdrop of social, political and personal issues that shaped their experiences across time.
The MMFA commissioned Molly Hatch to create a massive mosaic composed of 198 hand-painted earthenware plates that dominate the grand staircase of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion. To execute this work, the American potter drew inspiration from the Museum’s recently acquired, exquisite pseudo-cloisonné enamel vase produced by the Minton Manufactory based on a drawing by Christopher Dresser.
“Parall(elles)” is on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts until May 28, 2023.
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Molly Hatch’s signature plate paintings—large-scale installations of hand-glazed ceramic plates—reimagine historical decorative arts through a contemporary lens, while bridging the gap between decorative and fine art. The piece Staccato diffuses an 18th century Chinese export pattern from Owen Jones’ book The Grammar of Chinese Ornament over a gridded installation of 108 hand-painted earthenware plates. The glazed surfaces collectively become a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly re-rendering.
Spanning some of the most significant design developments of the past three centuries, the works on view offer boundless inspiration and endless possibilities for functional design for visitors to learn about, consider, and enjoy. This exhibition presents a selection of functional objects ranging from the evocative and extraordinary to the practical and everyday and highlights signature works by designers including Molly Hatch…
This commissioned, large-scale, hand-painted plate painting was inspired by two ca. 1755 Chelsea porcelain factory plates from the High’s Frances and Emory Cocke Collection of English Ceramics. Molly Hatch’s unique new work re-imagines the original depiction of flora and fauna found in the botanical Physic Garden that neighbored the Chelsea factory and inspired workers in the 1750s.
Ceramic Artist Molly Hatch has been commissioned to produce a monumental three-part installation in the niches in the Engelhard Court. Hatch is known for her murals made up of underglaze-painted porcelain plates, including two major installations at the High Museum in Atlanta. Repertoire will be her largest commission to date, honoring the Newark Museum’s 107-year-tradition of collecting contemporary ceramic art, and commemorating the retirement of Curator of Decorative Arts Ulysses Dietz after 37 years.
The sixth-floor cafe, originally introduced in 2017, has been redesigned, featuring jewelry-themed ceramic wall sculptures by Molly Hatch, and will be called the Blue Box Café by Daniel Boulud. Galleries on the eighth and ninth floors will host long-term rotating exhibitions. “We really wanted to give the feeling of this being more than just a store and a full experience,” says Alexandre Arnault…
Ducere, from the Latin meaning “to lead,” is composed of 198 perfectly round dinner plates arranged in triptych, each plate hand-painted to recreate the psychedelic Islamicizing pattern Christopher Dresser designed for his 1872 Minton factory Moon Flask. Dresser’s porcelain flask, an important Victorian-period piece from the “granddaddy of Industrial Design,” as Hatch calls him, is one of the Museum’s most recent acquisitions under Mary-Dailey Desmarais’s curatorial direction. Desmarais commissioned Hatch to design Ducere using the Moon Flask as a touchstone. No other artist could be better suited for this reboot.
“It was not only interesting from the point of view of activating our collection,” explains Desmarais, “but also showing a contemporary artist working within the medium of ceramics, that is a traditional medium used for centuries, and doing something entirely new with it. To see how this contemporary woman artist is navigating ceramic practice — doing a completely new take on a work of art in our collection, and something visually captivating, and also historically profound — was really interesting to us.”
Out of the exhibition’s 250 objects on view that broke boundaries in the world of design, roughly half are sourced from the museum’s permanent collection, with one new commission by American artist Molly Hatch, who is represented by Todd Merrill Studio.
As visitors ascend the grand staircase to the exhibition space, they are greeted by a monumental installation, Ducere(2022), created by Hatch and her two studio assistants. A grid of 198 ceramic plates in richly painted jewel tones and real gold spans 20 feet wide. The triptych draws inspiration from Christopher Dresser’s Minton Moon Flask (1872), a recent acquisition of the MMFA….
Parall(ELLES) A History of Women in Design Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: Designs by American and Canadian women are the subject of this sprawling exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design. Objects from the mid-19th century through today highlight the breadth of styles and media that female designers made while marginalized in social, political, and personal settings. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has also commissioned ceramicist Molly Hatch to create a giant mosaic of 198 hand-painted plates that will take over the exhibition pavilion.
Massachusetts-based artist Molly Hatch creates immense installations of hand-built ceramic plates painted with a variety of patterns and scenes. Hatch frequently re-contextualizes historic images used centuries ago by old porcelain manufactures as well as paintings and textiles. Her largest artwork to date, Physic Garden, was installed last year at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, a monumental installation of 475 plates depicting imagery used on Chelsea Factory plates dating back to the 1750s. Hatch is represented by Todd Merrill Studio, and you can see more work on her website. (via Design*Sponge, My Amp Goes to 11)
Ceramic Plate Installations by Molly Hatch
Introducing the latest work of Massachusetts-based artist Molly Hatch. Colourful, hand-painted, ceramic plate installations, in quite a variety of patterns and scenes.
Born in 1978, Molly Hatch, the daughter of a painter and an organic dairy farmer, her childhood was divided between physical labor, play and creating art. She studied drawing, printmaking and ceramics receiving her BFA at the Museum School in Boston in 2000. After several ceramic residencies and apprenticeships in the US and abroad, she received her MFA in ceramics at the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2008. Her career in ceramics has led to collaborations with institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Clark Art Institute, as well as collaborations with design and industry.
Molly Hatch’s Worcester Imari featured prominently in HC & G November/December 2021 issue. Designer Melanie Roy partnered with Todd Merrill Studio to create the “ultimate low-key luxe hangout space, with a focus on high craft and high glam.” Molly Hatch’s opulent work titled Worcester Imari hangs in the dining area. Click to read full article.
Todd Merrill Studio Presents an Eclectic Exhibition of Contemporary Art and Design at Art Wynwood, February 15 – 19, 2018
For the seventh installment of Art Wynwood, Fair Director, Grela Orihuela approached Todd Merrill Studio to help showcase the increasingly viable market for works that straddle the line between fine art and contemporary design. Todd Merrill Studio has built a well-recognized reputation for showing a diverse group of artists, each sharing an underlying drive to push their chosen medium to their absolute aesthetic limits. Their dynamic, unique, and frequently groundbreaking pieces contribute to today’s increasingly relevant gray-space between art and design.
Off the Walls
Western Massachusetts ceramist, designer, and artist Molly Hatch breaks molds and boundaries.
Approaching Molly Hatch’s ceramic studio on the third floor of Florence, Massachusetts’ Arts and Industry building, every single footstep resounds through the hallways. That’s the way of former mill buildings. This one, solid and comfortable with its little bit of dustiness and roughness, leaves plenty of space for artists to remake its purpose.
This Ceramicist Makes Breathtaking Wall-Art Out of Painted Plates
Her largest art installation is comprised of 475 plates.
Any gallery wall is worth marveling for a minute or two. But stop to imagine a different gallery wall: one that is aswirl with ceramic handpainted plates that have been inspired by historical paintings, porcelain, and works of art. The plates are arranged carefully to catch the attention of passerby (it definitely causes us to linger more than a minute or two). One artist, Molly Hatch is reinventing the gallery wall with her own unique medium: ceramic plates.