SALEM, MASS.-The Artful Teapot: 20th–Century Expressions from the Kamm Collection is a fascinating look at how a single object––the teapot––has served as a creative vehicle for artists around the world. The 250 teapots in the Peabody Essex Museum exhibition include teapots by painters Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney, sculptors Arman and Michael Lucero, and ceramists Betty Woodman and Adrian Saxe, as well as works by more than 100 other artists. Organized thematically, this highly original exhibition demonstrates how the teapot can be provocative, playful, and profound as well as conventional. Addressing aesthetic, social, and political issues, The Artful Teapot examines the teapot’s ability to be more than just a device to serve tea.

The exhibition is organized by Exhibitions International, New York City, and curated by Garth Clark, a scholar/author of numerous books on ceramic art, and founder and current director of the Ceramic Arts Foundation (NYC). Karina Corrigan, the Peabody Essex Museum’s associate curator of Asian Export Art, is coordinating curator of The Artful Teapot. The exhibition opens Nov. 25, 2005, and runs through March 5, 2006, at the Peabody Essex Museum.