Jim Romberg Biography

View Jim Romberg's available sculptures here or view available paintings here

Jim Romberg is Professor Emeritus from Southern Oregon University where he headed the Ceramics Department for nineteen years. Jim received his BA in Ancient and Medieval History from Pomona College, attended graduate studies at Union Theological Seminary, NYC and the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1972, after two years as a studio assistant at Pottery Northwest, Seattle, Jim returned to The Claremont Graduate University and received his MFA in Ceramics. One-year teaching assignments each at Texas Tech University and the Anderson Ranch in Aspen, Colorado, led to his creation of the ceramics department at the Sun Valley Center for Arts and Humanities in Sun Valley, Idaho. There as Artist-in-residence, and over the period of 12 years, Jim developed the Sun Valley Center’s ceramics department into an internationally recognized ceramics program. In 1986 Jim left Sun Valley to join the faculty at Southern Oregon University.

Jim has taught workshops in France at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Aix-en-Provence, the Ceramics Workshop in Avignon, in Switzerland at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Vevey, and throughout the US. He currently presents workshops on the practice Raku ceramics, the development of new forms of expression, and the place of criticism for the creator.

Exhibitions of his work continue throughout France, Switzerland and the US. As an artist and writer, Jim is a dedicated proponent of criticism in contemporary ceramics. Most recently he curated the traveling International Exhibition of Raku Ceramics entitled: “Raku: Origins, Impact and Contemporary Expression.”

In 2012, Romberg was honored with an invitation to France as the sole representative, demonstrator, and workshop leader from the USA for the International Raku Symposium: “Raku San Frontier, Giroussens, France.”

Romberg is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, and served as a Board Member of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts. Jim and his wife Lynette Jennings, also an acclaimed artist, are currently living in Sedona, Arizona where he maintains his studio and is Program Director for the Eagleheart Center for Art and Inquiry. 

 

Education

• Master of Fine Arts, Claremont Graduate School 1972
• Studio Assistant, Pottery Northwest, Seattle, WA 1968-70
• Bachelor of Arts, Ancient Medieval History, Pomona College 1965
• Study in Philosophy and Religion, Union Theological Seminary, 1965-67
• Cours pour l’Etranger, University of the Sorbonne, Paris, France 1962

  

Teaching Positions

• 1986 – 2006    Professor Emeritus of Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, Oregon
• 1974 – 1986    Artist in Residence and Instructor in Ceramics, Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities, Sun Valley Idaho
• 1981  Visiting Professor in Ceramics, University of Texas at San Antonio
• 1973 – 1974    Director of Ceramics, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass, Colorado
• 1972 – 1973    Instructor in Ceramics, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas

 

Memberships

• International Academy of Ceramics

  

Special Projects

• Director/Author: International Raku Symposium “Raku: Origins, Impact and Contemporary Expression” Eagleheart Center for Art and Inquiry
•  Curator: International Raku Symposium “Raku: Origins, Impact and Contemporary Expression, Touring Exhibition of 10 International Raku Masters 
• Panel Moderator: NCECA March 2006 “Towards a New Criticism”, Creator and Director of National Conference on Criticism and Clay: Past Models, Future Shapes
•  Project Director, CRITICAL SANTA FE, 3 day symposium on Criticism in the Arts, Santa Fe, NM

 

Selected Exhibitions

• "25th Anniversary Celebration" Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ (2017)
• Arizona State University Ceramic Research Center, Phoenix AZ
• Gallerie Marianne Brand, Carouge, Geneva, Switzerland
• NCECA Raku Invitational, Kansas City, Missouri
• Scripps Annual, Claremont, California
• Raku Ho’laule’a Exhibition, Honolulu, Hawaii

 

Selected Collections

• Marer Collection, Scripps College
• Boise Museum of Art, Idaho
• Pottery Northwest, Seattle, Washington
• City of Geneva, Switzerland
• Sevres Museum, Paris, France
• Northern Arizona University Museum, Flagstaff

 

Selected Publications

• Raku Ceramics with Jim Romberg, DVD Video, Crystal Productions
• Raku Ceramics, by S. Branfram
• Raku: Origins, Impact and Contemporary Expression, Catalogue ISBN 59975-133X by Jim Romberg and Lynette Jennings

 

Selected Workshops

• Banff Centre, Banff, Canada
• Boulder Mountain Clay Works, Ketchum, ID
• Les Printemps des Potiers, Bandol, France
• University of Washington, Seattle, WA
• Laloba Clay Center, Steamboat Springs, CO
• American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA