Dora De Larios

Dora De Larios (1933 – January 28, 2018) was an American ceramist and sculptor working in Los Angeles. She was known for her work's clean lines and distinctive glazes, as well as for her line of tableware created under her family-run company Irving Place Studio. Also a muralist working with tile, De Larios was noted for her style, which reflects mythological and pan-cultural themes.

Early life and education Born in Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant 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 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. Beginning in the late 1960s, she began experimenting with bronze, creating sculptures based on her personal experiences.

Selected exhibitions De Larios's work has been featured in a number of solo and group exhibitions across Southern California, including the M.O.A. Gallery in West Hollywood (1988 and 1990), Marsha Rodell Gallery in Brentwood (1982), Bakersfield College (1982) Anhalt Gallery in Los Angeles (1967, 1969 and 1974) and Zora Gallery in Los Angeles (1964).

In 2009, the Craft and Folk Art Museum hosted Sueños / Yume: Fifty Years of the Art of Dora De Larios a retrospective of De Larios's work, curated by Elaine Levin.

In 2011, she was prominently featured in Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican-American Generation at Autry Museum of the American West.

In 2017, two of De Larios's sculptures were included in the exhibition Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition highlighted the artist's deep connections to ancient Mexican art. That year, the artist donated her Goddess totems (2009) to the museum's permanent collection.

In 2018, the Main Museum in downtown Los Angeles organized a retrospective of her work, Dora De Larios: Other Worlds.

Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica organized exhibitions of her work in 2017 and 2019. The 2017 exhibition featured De Larios along with three other Mexican American artists, Gilbert Luján, Carlos Almarez, and Elsa Flores Almaraz. The 2019 exhibition The Studio is My Church featured paintings on paper from the last year of the artist's life, along with ceramic sculptures.

Her work, Opera Singer, was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the Renwick Gallery's 50th Anniversary Campaign.

Major commissions In 1970–1971, De Larios created, as a lead artist through the Franciscan Ceramics division of Interpace, the Grand Canyon Concourse fourth floor lobby mural in the Disney World Contemporary Resort in Orlando.

Other public commissions include: Life Force in Laguna Beach, 2003 Koi Goddesses at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, 1997 Tree of Life in Culver City, 1997 Homage to Quetzalcoatl at Villa-Park Community Center in Pasadena, 1992 The Elements in Los Angeles, 1989 The World According to Dora at the Hilton Anaheim, 1984 Exterior murals for public libraries in Compton (1973), Lynwood (1977), Norwood (1977) and Rowland Heights (1978).