Born in New Orleans, ceramicist Doyle Lane studied at the University of Southern California with such notables as F. Carlton Ball, Ken Price, Vivid Heins, and Glen Lukens.  Lane maintained a studio in East LA,  and made a living solely through art, with a diversified portfolio of work which meant that he worked as a glaze consultant for local ceramic supply companies, sold his beads through craft galleries, and ceramic pots through the Brockman Gallery, a Black owned gallery for African-American artists (founded by Dale and Alonzo Davis), from 1960-1980.

Lane was known for his work ethic, and made important connections in the world of architecture and art which not only led to sales of his work, but also to important mural commissions.  In 1964, he completed a 17 foot mural (The Orange Wall) for the Pasadena office of the Mutual Savings and Loan Association.  This mural has since been re-installed in the courtyard of the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino.  Artist Charles White considered Lane a friend, and recommended him for a mural commission at the International Children’s School in Los Angeles.

He threw pots, made color field tile murals and abstract ‘clay paintings’, along with mosaics, beads, enamel panels, wooden keepsake boxes and other artifacts that observed no delineation between fine art, folk art, applied art or design. (Griffin, New York Times)

Lane was known for his innovative, bubbling glazes and weed pots, named for their tiny opening in which to place a single stem. A glaze specialist, in the Glen Lukens tradition, he developed glazes to enhance his small simple forms. They often crawl, bubble, crack and melt off the lower edges of his pieces.

Lane’s most successful pots have glazes that resemble natural formations such as cracks and fissures in rocks, water in streams, and gently blowing grasses in fields. (LeFalle-Collins, Lizzetta, 314.)

His work has been featured in exhibitions at Brockman Gallery, Ankrum Gallery, Pasadena Art Museum, Oakland Museum,  an important 1970 exhibition California Black Craftsmen at Mills College Art Gallery. In recent years, his work has been included in, California Design, 1930-1964: Living in a Modern Way (2011), Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Crafting America, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (2021); David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; and Objects USA: 2020 at NYC’s R & Company Gallery (2021).  His work is held in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, California African American Museum, and New Orleans Museum of Art.

REF:  Griffin, Jonathan, Adding a New Name to the Canon in Clay: Doyle Lane, New York Times, July 29, 2020.

LeFalle-Collins, Lizzetta, St. James Guide to Black Artists, 314.