Artist: Sequoia Miller
Headshot of Dr. Sequoia Miller. Credit: Brittany Carmichael, The Canadian Society of Decorative Arts, February 2026 article.
Sequoia Miller, TORONTO
BIO
From the University of Toronto and the Gardiner Museum:
Dr. Sequoia Miller is currently the Chief Curator and Deputy Director of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art. A curator, historian, and studio potter. He has a BA in Russian & Art History from Brandeis University, an MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center in New York City, and a PhD in the History of Art from Yale University. His thesis analyzed the connections between ceramics and conceptual art practices on the East and West Coasts of the United States in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Sequoia curated The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art at the Yale University Art Gallery and authored the accompanying award-winning catalogue. Before re-entering academia, he was a full-time studio potter for more than 10 years. Based in the Pacific Northwest, he made one-of-a-kind functional pots for daily use in domestic environments. Sequoia has exhibited widely and led workshops at craft schools, universities, and art centers in the U.S. and Canada.
BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS
In 2015, Miller curated the landmark exhibition The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, bringing ceramic artists like Peter Voulkos, Lucie Rie, and Toshiko Takaezu into dialogue with painters and sculptors in other media including Willem de Kooning, Ed Ruscha, and Mark Rothko.
Recent curatorial projects include Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground and Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects. He has published widely on ceramics, including Ceramic Art (Princeton University Press, 2023).