Barbara Lucille Willis Abbott, longtime Malibu resident and California Art ceramicist, died Sept. 3 at her home in San Ramon, Calif. She was 94.
Abbott was born on June 29, 1917. She moved to Malibu in 1951 and remained until 2010, when she moved to San Ramon to be near her daughter Liz.
Abbott earned a bachelor’s degree in education with a special secondary in art from UCLA in 1940. After graduation, she opened up Barbara Jean Pottery Studio in Los Angeles with her business partner Jean Rose. Three years later she began her own pottery line. As her business grew, she purchased a larger commercial property in North Hollywood where she had a production line of 15 employees.
After a rise in imported pottery during the 1950s, the increased competition forced Abbott to close her store in 1958.
The next year, Abbott began a new business of importing colorful plastic flowers she co-designed with a company in Hong Kong. After ceasing direct importing in 1970, she opened a retail shop with the inventory of artificial flowers and needlecraft in Granada Hills.
As her property investing business became more successful, Abbott retired from the retail business in 1973 to travel.
In 1995 Abbott discovered a piece of her vintage pottery at a flea market. She gave her information to the seller and was soon contacted by collectors of her pottery who informed her that her work had been sought-after collectibles for many years.
The discovery of her vintage pottery led Abbott to launch a modern pottery line, handmade in her Malibu studio, in 1996. She continued making pieces for the modern line until 2009.
“Barbara Willis’ clean-lined ceramic designs with intensely colored glazes were early contributors to what we now call Mid-Century Modern design,” Bill Stern, executive director of the Museum of California Design, said. “Examples of her popular, commercially-produced work were exhibited in ‘California Pottery: From Missions to Modernism’ at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2001 and at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles in 2003.”
Abbott’s work will be included in LACMA’s exhibit “California Design 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way” and the Museum of California Design’s exhibition “California’s Designing Women: 1896-1986,” at the Museum of the American West in Los Angeles.
Abbott is survived by her daughter Liz Graham.
A private celebration of life memorial service will take place in Malibu next month.