Jim Melchert (né James Frederick Melchert; December 2, 1930 – June 1, 2023)^[1] was an American visual artist, arts administer, and professor. He is known for his ceramics and sculptures. Melchert was part of the Funk art movement.^[2]

James Frederick Melchert was born on December 2, 1930, in New Breman, Ohio.^[3] His parents were Hulda Egli and Rev. John Carl Melchert, and he had two older brothers.^[3] He graduated in 1948 from Mansfield High School in Mansfield, Ohio.^[4]

After earning an AB in art history from Princeton University in 1952, he moved to Japan where he taught English for four years after he declared himself a conscientious objector to the Korean War.^[3] Upon returning to the United States, he earned postgraduate degrees in painting at the University of Chicago (1957), and studied ceramics under Peter Voulkos at the University of California, Berkeley (1961).^[5]

Throughout his career, Melchert worked with many media, including painting, drawing, performance art, film, and most notably sculpture and ceramics.^[6] His unique process involves breaking down, drawing on, and reassembling ceramic tiles before painting the new constructions with glaze.^[7]

He taught at San Francisco Art Institute from 1961 to 1965; and the University of California, Berkeley from 1965 to 1992. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was one of his notable students at UC Berkeley.^[8]

From 1977 until 1981, Melchert served as the director of Visual Arts Program for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).^[3][9] From 1984 until 1988, he was the director of the American Academy in Rome.^[3]

Melchert died at his Oakland, California, home on June 1, 2023, at the age of 92, of complications from a stroke he suffered in April.^[10][3] He had three children.

As part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, Melchert donated his papers to the Smithsonian’s Archive of American Arts in 2004 and 2019–2021.^[11] His work is held by over two dozen collections, including the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, The Museum of Arts and Design and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art^[12]
• Metropolitan Museum of Art^[13]
• Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam^[14]
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art^[15]

• Nut Pot Bag or Clay Without Tears (artist book). Authored by Jim Adamson, Robert Arneson, Clayton Bailey, Fred Bauer, Maija Peeples-Bright, Victor Cicansky, David Gilhooly, Jim Melchert, Nicholas Stephens, Chris Unterseher, Peter Vandenberge, David Zack, Lowell Darling. University of California, Davis. 1971.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• Miller, Sequoia (2015). The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art: Selections from the Linda Leonard Schlenger Collection and the Yale University Art Gallery. Yale University Art Gallery. ISBN 978-0300214406.
• Spinozzi, Adrienne (2021). Shapes From Out of Nowhere: Ceramics from the Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection. August Editions. ISBN 978-1947359062.