Mary Tuthill Lindheim

Mary Tuthill Lindheim was a potter and sculptor who excelled in carved and inlaid work.  As a tireless advocate for the recognition and appreciation of the studio arts in Northern California, she sought to unite the division between craft and fine art. 

Lindheim lived in the San Francisco Bay Area most her life apart from periods in New York City and Chicago. Attending Chouinard Art Institute (later Otis) in Los Angeles, she became the student and teaching assistant for Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Archipenko. She also studied under Isamu Noguchi. She exhibited her sculpture in clay, metal, and stone at the Whitney Museum Sculptor’s Guild, the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the New School for Social Research, and the Katherine Kuh Gallery in Chicago. She designed fireplace surround tiles for Leisure House Architects Pavilion, San Francisco Arts Festival (1951). Otto Heino, called her a sculptor rather than a potter—though creating beautiful, utilitarian ceramic forms became an important aspect of her life’s work. After studies with Antonio Prieto at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA) and Mills College, she taught pottery at the California School of Fine Arts (later San Francisco Art Institute) and the San Francisco California Labor School. She exhibited her art locally in museums with Marguerite Wildenhain, Edith Heath, Antonio and Eunice Prieto, Ernie Kim, Ruby O’Burke and many others. Lindheim was President of the Association of San Francisco Potters when Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, and Soetsu Yanagi visited in 1953, a momentous event which spurred California clay artists to new heights.