— The Shipley Yearbook, 1911

Beatrice Wood ’11 is one of Shipley’s most distinguished graduates— certainly one of its most unconventional. Her yearbook entry continues: “We have always imagined that the future would bring a brilliant career in the Art world to Bee, but now we think that perhaps her life work will be the reforming of convicts by pure original methods.”

Indeed, “Bee” did have “a brilliant career in the Art world”—twice, first as a central figure in the Dada Movement in New York, and second, as an artist in her own right. And certainly, if she did not become a reformer of convicts, she was an original. From her days at Shipley until her death in 1998 at 105, Beatrice Wood ’11 created and re-created herself as a personage and an artist.

In a 1999 article in the “Lives They Lived” series in The New York Times, Beatrice is pictured in her standard pose as a bejeweled priestess of art, dressed in a sari, and wearing a roguish smile. As The Times wrote: “She spent more than a century escaping convention and inventing a life on the cutting edge of American art.”

After graduation from Shipley, Beatrice avoided the expected—both enrollment in Bryn Mawr College and a social life in New York—by going to Paris to study art. The Times summarized this period: “She befriended Brancusi, danced for Nijinsky, made costumes for Isadora Duncan, and shared a gynecologist with Edna St. Vincent Millay.” But her most notable relationship was formed after her return to New York, where she met the conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp and became involved with the Society of Independent Artists and the Dada movement.

Called in a film biography the “Mama of Dada,” she was also the prototype for the lady in the love triad in Truffaut’s film, Jules et Jim, and—most notably for today’s generation—the prototype for Rose, the rebellious rich girl in James Cameron’s Titanic.

With these credentials, Beatrice Wood would be a footnote in the history of art and film. But there was more. Her full re-creation came in the 1930s when, having moved to Los Angeles, she took a pottery course and started making ceramics. Ultimately, she became world-renowned for her luster-glazed pottery. She made dinnerware to support herself through the Second World War. She later made primitive little figurines. She made grand vases and platters, and her work was acquired by major collections throughout the world, including New York’s Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

Over time, Beatrice’s house and studio in Ojai, California became a mecca for collectors and ceramicists, fascinated in particular with the alchemy of her glazes. It was also a place of joy and fellowship, as can be seen in films and interviews. Beatrice’s lack of self-consciousness, and her honesty, what her classmates called “her sweet unselfishness” are totally engaging. She laughed infectiously and without restraint.

This was a great artist who took her art, but not herself, seriously. Still, Beatrice Wood was at heart a product of The Shipley School, as she made clear in a gracious letter to the Alumni Association in 1989. “Having graduated from The Shipley School in 1910 [sic] this is [the] first time in 79 years I have heard from you. But this does not mean that I have not often thought and spoken of the three years I spent at your school. They were happy years because there was a democratic feeling among the students... Three years at Shipley had a great impact on my life and were I stronger I would fly back and tell all the students how much I love the school.”

Certainly, Beatrice’s classmates appreciated her. In the 1911 yearbook, there is a color frontispiece drawn by her, included obviously at some expense. “We all envy her artistic ability, but there are times when we feel that not being a genius has its compensations, for if ever there is a poster to be drawn, a sketch to be made, or a program to be illustrated the task devolves upon Beatrice. During the three years that she has been here she has proved herself not only ready and willing but capable.… With her bright ideas, her nimble fingers, and her sweet unselfishness, Bee is indeed a valuable member of the Class of 1911.”

This profile was originally published in the Spring 2011 Bulletin. Read a full biography of Beatrice Wood at http://www.beatricewood.com/biography.html.