The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical GardensSan Marino

Doyle Lane: Master of Clay

Now showing13 September 2026 – 1 March 2027Ticketed, see website

First major museum retrospective on Los Angeles ceramic artist Doyle Lane (1923-2002).

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On now All of November 2026

Doyle Lane's weed pots are small round vessels with a neck narrow enough for one dried stem, and no two share a skin. Bubbles, drips, burn marks and patches of bare clay were left in on purpose. Art and Cake's critic admitted fighting the urge to lick them.

You walk into more than 100 works from the 1950s to the 1980s in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art: vessels, masks, beads, wall reliefs and the "clay paintings" Lane fired hotter than recommended, so his reds run from orange to crimson with black edges. Archive photographs and a documentary film fill in a Black artist the galleries ignored, who sold his first pots door to door.

Afterwards, find the 1964 Mutual Savings and Loan Mural in the Banta Education Center courtyard: 4,876 glazed tiles, 17 feet across. Entry is included with general admission ($29 Monday to Thursday, $34 at weekends), reservations are required Friday to Sunday, and the Huntington is closed on Tuesdays.

Editor's pick

Lane's 1964 Mutual Savings mural, 4,876 tiles, sits in the Banta courtyard; inside are more than 100 weed pots and clay paintings. Art and Cake's critic admitted fighting the urge to lick the pots.

Look for

The weed pots
Look for the small spherical vases made for a single dried stem, each with its own crust of bubbles, bumps, drips and spatters.
The Mutual Savings and Loan Mural
In the Banta Education Center courtyard, 4,876 burnt-orange tiles made for a Pasadena bank in 1964, none quite identical, so the wall shimmers like cloth.
The Pantry Food Markets fish
A ceramic fish on a wooden mount, made in 1964 for a fountain at a Pasadena supermarket.
The Sanchez family tiles
Two ceramic pieces on wood that Lane gave his El Sereno neighbour around 1980, which hung in her kitchen for decades before she donated them for this show.