Jo Lauria is an independent curator and an art and design historian. She holds a degree in art history from Yale University and in studio art from Otis College of Art and Design. Formerly, Lauria was a decorative arts curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), specializing in modern and contemporary decorative arts, craft, and design. She has published extensively, organized numerous exhibitions, and produced and directed multimedia presentations and documentary films. In 2005, she co-organized the traveling exhibition, Ruth Duckworth—Modernist Sculptor, and wrote the accompanying monograph on Duckworth, published by Lund Humphries. In the same year she coauthored with Suzanne Baizerman, California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Craft and Style, a design survey for Chronicle Books assessing the dynamic contributions California designers made to the field.

 Currently Jo Lauria serves as chief curator of the exhibition CRAFT IN AMERICA: Expanding Traditions, a nationally touring show hosted by seven Ameri-can museums. The exhibition is intended to complement the PBS documentary series, CRAFT IN AMERICA: Memory, Landscape, and Community. The companion book to the exhibition, Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects was coauthored by Jo Lauria and released in fall 2007. Lauria’s most recent exhibition, Masters of Mid-Century California Modernism: Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman will be on view at the Mingei International Museum, San Diego, through Jan. 10, 2010.

For Photos of 2009 Award Winners Click Here

Images from Materials Hard & Soft 2009

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