From Facts to Wonder: Mary Frank’s Enigmatic Figures

One of my first truly profound art experiences was with a sculpture by Mary Frank. I was twenty years old, and an intern at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. The museum’s collection of twentieth-century ceramics is one of the best anywhere, and there were many works that I found revelatory: Adelaide Alsop Robineau’s intricate Scarab Vase (1910), with its impossibly delicate carving; a handsome vase by Maija Grotell, with chevrons gliding down through the icy glaze; an early expr