Dawn by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Dawn, 2024, painted aluminum, 11' 10" × 9' 2" × 6' 8" (360.7 cm × 279.4 cm × 203.2 cm), including 18" x 5' circumference plinth. Installation view, Avenue Winston Churchill, Oct 21 – 26, 2025, Art Basel Paris © Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet

Portrait of Arlene Shechet

Artist Arlene Shechet in her studio in Woodstock, NY in August, 2018. Photo: Jeremy Liebman

Arlene Shechet is a sculptor known for her effortless combination of disparate elements, precarious and provisional arrangements, and boundary-collapsing visual paradoxes.

With gravity-defying work that seems to tilt, contort, bend, and melt, Shechet’s sculptures appear to be set in motion while unearthing the expressive potential of material and forms and forcing us to sit with—and move around—its contradictions. Shechet began working with clay in 2007 and has since developed a unique practice, changing the landscape of ceramic as medium. Highly technical yet entirely intuitive, her practice embraces improvisation and seeks to examine the humor and pathos of the lived human experience. Embracing the inherent duality of clay—its malleability and durability, its fragility and hardened strength—Shechet has led a resurgence of ceramic work in contemporary art through her experiments with glazes, hybrid forms, and pedestals by embracing risk, rejecting binaries, and leaning into—and driving dialogue between—the underlying tensions of not only form and material, but life itself.

Shechet has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including All At Once (2015), a major, critically acclaimed survey of her work at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, that The New York Times called “some of the most imaginative American sculpture of the past 20 years, and some of the most radically personal.” Other selected solo exhibitions include Full Steam Ahead (2018–19), an ambitious, large-scale public project installed in Madison Square Park, New York (2018), and Disrupt the View: Arlene Shechet at the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts (2022–25). Her curatorial vision has been shown in exhibitions such asPorcelain, No Simple Matter: Arlene Shechet and the Arnhold Collection, The Frick Collection, New York (2016–17); From Here On Now, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2016–17); Arlene Shechet: Ways of Seeing: Three Takes on the Jack Shear Drawing Collection, The Drawing Center, New York (2021); and STUFF, Pace Gallery, New York (2022). Her most ambitious outdoor exhibition to date, Arlene Shechet: Girl Group, at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York (2024) featured six new large-scale commissions—spanning heights of ten to twenty feet and lengths of up to thirty feet—along with complementary indoor works in wood, steel, and ceramic. Like her work, Shechet’s approach to installation and curation is equally intuitive and playful, responding to the architecture and creating dialogue between works, sites, and spectators, inviting them into a space and ushering them through its choreography.

In 2023, Shechet was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This follows many other awards and honors, including the Artist Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987); the Visual Artist Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York (2004); the Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York (2010); and the CAA Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work, National Academy Induction, College Art Association (2016), among others. Monumental works from Arlene Shechet: Girl Group have been acquired by Claremont McKenna College, California; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Des Moines Art Center, Iowa; and Storm King. Other recent museum acquisitions include the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins, Lisbon; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. In addition to these, Shechet’s work is held in over fifty public collections worldwide, including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The artist lives and works in New York City and the Hudson Valley.

Splice by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Splice, 1999, handmade Abaca paper, 30" × 30" (76.2 cm × 76.2 cm), 34-1/2" × 34-1/2" (87.6 cm × 87.6 cm) framed © Arlene Shechet

Knotted by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Knotted, 1997, handmade Abaca paper, 30" × 30" (76.2 cm × 76.2 cm), 35-5/8" × 35-5/8" × 1-1/2" (90.5 cm × 90.5 cm × 3.8 cm) framed © Arlene Shechet

Overflowing by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Overflowing, 2012, glazed Meissen porcelain, 5-1/2" × 8-1/2" × 6-1/2" (14 cm × 21.6 cm × 16.5 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Jar 50130 (Onion) by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Jar 50130 (Onion), 2013, glazed Meissen porcelain and gold, 6-3/4" × 7-1/8" × 7-1/8" (17.1 cm × 18.1 cm × 18.1 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Bea Blue by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Bea Blue, 2024, painted aluminum, 13' 10-15/16" × 8' 5-1/2" × 13' 9-15/16" (424 cm × 257.8 cm × 421.5 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Perfect Days by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Perfect Days, 2024, glazed ceramic, artist designed frame, 20-1/16" × 17-5/8" (51 cm × 44.8 cm) framed © Arlene Shechet

A Promise by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, A Promise, 2024, glazed ceramic, artist designed frame, 20-7/8" × 18-1/8" (53 cm × 46 cm) framed © Arlene Shechet

Iron Twins (for T Space) by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Iron Twins (for T Space), 2022, cast 2020, cast iron, 49" × 25-1/2" × 38" (124.5 cm × 64.8 cm × 96.5 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Midnight by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Midnight, 2024, painted aluminum, 13' 9" × 25' 5" × 13' 10" (419.1 cm × 774.7 cm × 421.6 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Together: For Japan by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Together: For Japan, 2024, glazed ceramic and powder coated steel, 14" × 15" × 13" (35.6 cm × 38.1 cm × 33 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Summer Crush by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Summer Crush, 2025, glazed ceramic, painted and dyed hardwood and steel, 21-1/2" × 19-1/2" × 20" (54.6 cm × 49.5 cm × 50.8 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Turn Turn Turn by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Turn Turn Turn, 2025, glazed ceramic, painted hardwood, steel and gold leaf, 26" × 16" × 17" (66 cm × 40.6 cm × 43.2 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Together: Here by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Together: Here, 2025, glazed ceramic and powder coated steel, 16-1/2" × 13" × 18" (41.9 cm × 33 cm × 45.7 cm) © Arlene Shechet

Sometimes a Silver Bird, Palladium Leaf by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Sometimes a Silver Bird, Palladium Leaf, 2025, sand-cast bronze and palladium leaf, 72" × 12" × 12" (182.9 cm × 30.5 cm × 30.5 cm) © Arlene Shechet