Grotell, Maija

Ceramist and educator. Born 1899. Died 1973. After several years as a textile designer in her native Finland, Grotell immigrated to the United States in 1927. For a short time she studied with Charles Fergus Binns and from 1938 to 1966 she headed the ceramics department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. During this period, the height of her career, she became one of the leaders in the development of ceramics as a medium of artistic expression. In addition, her research on glazes for Eero Saarinen made possible the widespread architectural use of colored glazed bricks.

Maija Grotell, ceramist and teacher of the potter's art, was born on 19 August 1899 in Helsingfors, Finland, the daughter of Carl Gustav and Selma (Wiens) Grotell. After studying painting, sculpture, and design at Helsingfors' Central School of Industrial Art "Ateneum," where she graduated in 1920, she joined a textile firm as an artist while continuing her study of pottery,

She immigrated to the United States in October 1927. During her first year in the United States she attended summer school courses taught by Charles Fergus Binns at Alfred University. For the next ten years she taught in New York City, first as an instructor at the Inwood Pottery Studios from 1927 to 1928. She taught children at the Union Settlement from 1928 to 1929 and was an instructor in ceramics at the Henry Street Craft School from 1929 to 1938. From 1936 to 1938 she was an instructor of ceramics and a research assistant at Rutgers University. She was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1934.

In 1938 she moved to the celebrated Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where her associates included architect Eliel Saarinen and sculptor Carl Milles. She remained there as head of the department of ceramics until 1966. As both artist and teacher. she was one of the leaders in the development of ceramics as a medium of expression by the artist. In her twenty-eight years at Cranbrook she taught dozens of students who explored with her the practical and decorative uses of clay. Her research on glazes for Eliel Saarinen (who later made extensive use of ceramics in his General Motors Technical Center) made possible the widespread architectural use of colored glazed bricks.

The numerous awards presented to Maija Grotell include the Diploma di Colabrador at the Barcelona International Exhibition in 1929, the silver medal at the Paris International Exposition of 1937, the Charles Fergus Binns Medal of Alfred University (1961), the Cranbrook Founders Medal (1964), and the Cranbrook Academy of Art Faculty Medal (1966). She had solo shows at (among others) the Art Institute of Chicago in 1950, the Cranbrook Museum in 1952, and a retrospective at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Joe and Emily Lowe Art Center of Syracuse University, and the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in 1967. During her career she participated as both artist and judge in invitational exhibitions, and her works are represented in the permanent collections of many leading museums. After her retirement she continued to live in Cranbrook. She died in Pontiac, Michigan on 6 December 1973.