Biography
William Daley was born in Hastings-on-Hudson New York on March 7th, 1925. His father, a house painter and avid lover of poetry and the arts, fostered William's creative appetite. After surviving prison camp during World War II, Daley went on to attend The Massachusetts College of Art in Boston where, under the G.I. Bill, he received his Bachelors Degree in 1950. After graduation, William married his college classmate, Catherine Stennes. They relocated to New York where Daley completed his Graduate Degree from Columbia University Teachers College in 1952.
Bill pictured with a few of his pots at Vesica Explorations, a solo show held at List Gallery. Photo shot by Amanda N. Williams
Daley went on to teach ceramics at state colleges in Iowa and later New York but spent the vast majority of his educational career - nearly forty years - in the Industrial Design Department, and later in the Crafts Department at Philadelphia College of Art (now The University of the Arts) in Philadelphia.
William has been given numerous awards and accolades for his career as an educator and ceramic artist: Honorary doctorates from both The Maine College of Art and University of the Arts, Awards from the College Art Association, American Craft Council, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Northern Clay Center & Watershed.
Daley has been the subject of many publications (American Craft Magazine & Nelsons Ceramics to name a few - and exhibitions - Poetics of Clay an International Perspective, Clay Today, International Architectural Ceramic Exhibition, Architecture and Ceramics: Material, Structure, Vision). His most recent show, William Daley Vesica Explorations, was exhibited in the fall of 2009 in the List Gallery at Swarthmore College. The show included nineteen pieces: Two of which (Sentinel Vesica & Cross Under Vesica) were finished within days of the opening. You can find Daley’s large, unglazed stoneware vessels at The Clayarch Gimhae Museum, Gimhae, South Korea; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, The Stedelijk Museum’s Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.