‘Grand dame’ of Pittsburgh ceramics as artist, teacher and gallery owner
An award-winning ceramist and doyenne of the local art scene, Elvira Peake hosted clay artists from around the world at her gallery and championed art education for more than six decades in Pittsburgh.
If Mrs. Peake took notice of your work, you were somebody, said longtime business associate and friend Graham Turnbull.
“She was the grand dame of ceramics in Pittsburgh,” said Mr. Turnbull, of Standard Ceramics in Carnegie, where he, his father and grandfather worked with Mrs. Peake as their primary distributor in the area. “If Elvira was exhibiting your work, it was almost like being blessed by the pope for Catholics. You’d arrived once Elvira gave you a show and deemed you worthy.”
Mrs. Peake, 90, a longtime resident of Point Breeze, died Feb. 15 after recent health setbacks in Miami, Fla., where she moved in recent years.
She was perhaps best known as an art teacher and proprietor of The Clay Place, an art store, gallery and studio, which operated for more than 30 years in Shadyside before relocating to Carnegie in 2006.
“She was like a legend,” said her daughter Susan Peake, of Friendship. “The arts community was her whole life. There was no separation between her home life, personal life or business life. It was one seamless whole thing that had to do with the art scene in Pittsburgh.”
Growing up in East McKeesport as the only child of Northern Italian immigrants, Mrs. Peake showed promise as a young artist and found encouragement from a high school teacher, but it wasn’t always an easy journey, her daughter said.
“Her parents bought a house in a new development on top of a slag heap in East McKeesport, and she used to go down to the Carnegie Museum of Art to take the Tam O’Shanter [art] classes,” she said. “The students had to draw a squirrel, but she didn’t know what a squirrel looked like, because there were no trees in her neighborhood that were large enough to have a squirrel.”
Mrs. Peake earned a degree in fine art from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1951 and taught at Fort Pitt Elementary School, Point Park University and at what is now the Pittsburgh Center for Arts & Media.
In 1956, she married Stephen Peake, a chemical engineer whom she met during a potting class at Carnegie Tech. Mr. Peake died in 1982.
By 1973, the couple opened the first of three The Clay Place shops at the corner of Ivy and Walnut streets in Shadyside, and later moved to the opposite end of Walnut Street, above Shadyside Market.
Mrs. Peake curated her friendships like she curated her art — with an eye toward favoring the authentic, unique and innovative, and she frequently seemed more interested in exposing people to ceramics than selling them, her daughter said.
“My mother really thrived in that community and with her shop,” she said. “It wasn’t about the money. She just wanted to encourage people to do art and to enjoy art.”
Her medium also served as a form of self-expression, her daughter said.
“She loved pottery because with clay you have this physical, direct relationship with it,” she said. “Working in clay is not just about expressing yourself; it’s about understanding yourself. I always felt that my mom saw no distinction between crafts and fine art — she wasn’t an art snob. She believed in accessibility for all.”
For example, when a group of docents showed up for a Warren MacKenzie pottery exhibit at her shop in 1991, Mrs. Peake invited them to return for a private viewing so they could handle the pottery to better appreciate its unique tactile sensation — something they wouldn’t have had the chance to experience in a museum.
Mrs. Peake supported younger artists as well, sometimes hosting eclectic exhibitions that combined the work of enthusiastic high school students with that of internationally established artists.
Often asked to serve as jurist at exhibitions, Mrs. Peake’s art was recognized many times, including in 2008 with the Award of Excellence from the National
Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.
Locally, her pieces can be found at the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.
Mrs. Peake also served as a Shadyside Chamber of Commerce and Associated Artists of Pittsburgh board member for many years and was an active supporter of other artists and galleries.
“She was all about community and creating,” her daughter said. “She was always going to gallery openings and art shows all over the city.”
It was almost impossible to have a meaningful discussion about art in Pittsburgh without hearing Mrs. Peake’s name, Mr. Turnbull said.
“She was very influential in bringing artists to Pittsburgh,” he said. “Art was what excited her the most and being around the artists and supporting them — that was really a passion for her.”
Mrs. Peake is survived by another daughter, Frances Peake, of Miami Shores, Fla.
A celebration of life is being planned in Mrs. Peake’s memory for early this summer.