Sylvia Hyman

Sylvia Hyman (September 9, 1917 – December 23, 2012) was an American ceramic artist, art teacher and visual artist. She was known for her lifelike ceramic pieces and sculptures which are included in the collections of museums worldwide. Her trademark pieces, which were fashioned from stoneware or porcelain, often used the artist technique of trompe-l'œil (meaning "deceive the eye" or "fooling the eye" in French) to create the realism of art. Much of Hyman's work featured everyday objects, such as paper, books, or food, realistically crafted from ceramic.

Examples of her work are included in the collections of museums and art collections worldwide including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the Saga Prefectural Museum in Saga, Japan, the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, and the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C.

Executive Director Susan Edwards of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, where Hyman held a major exhibition called "Sylvia Hyman: Fictional Clay" in 2007, praised Hyman's legacy in an interview with The Tennessean following her death, telling the newspaper, "There are few ceramists anywhere more revered than Nashville's own, Sylvia Hyman...In her long and productive career, encompassing abstraction and realism, Sylvia showed us the remarkable power of touch and the potential of clay. Her exhibition at the Frist (in 2007) remains one of our most well-received locally." The 2007 exhibition had marked her 90th birthday.