Dan Snyder

• Name — Dan Snyder • Birth Name — Daniel Cotton Snyder • Born — 23 July 1948 • Birthplace — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States • Education — Pennsylvania State University, University of California, Davis • Occupation — Sculptor, ceramicist, educator.

Born July 23, 1948 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Initially Snyder was inspired by his Central High School art instructor Frederick Gill. Opting not to go to art school in order to follow his brother Allan Snyder’s scientific career path, he nonetheless found his calling while holding a ball of clay in a ceramics class, and earned bachelor of fine arts degree from Pennsylvania State University 1970. His PSU ceramic sculpture work led him to Robert Arneson, and a University of California, Davis (UC Davis), master of fine arts degree in 1972, as well as his association with other faculty members William T. Wiley, Wayne Thiebaud, Roy De Forest, Manuel Neri, and fellow students John E. Buck, Jock Reynolds, Richard T. Notkin, Deborah Butterfield, and John Roloff.

Snyder is known for his life-size classical inspired ceramic figures, such as The Restoration of Hope 2, located in the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Mondavi Art Garden, University of California Davis, and his painted cut-out sculptures which he uses in public art works such as Welcome North, Welcome South, Welcome East, Welcome West, commissioned by the San Francisco International Airport and the San Francisco Arts Commission in 1983. Of his ceramic figures, Maria Porges wrote in American Ceramics, December 1990, “Snyder‘s method of assembling the figure out of a shell of fragments often creates an astonishing lightness of being at the same time the whorl of vigorous modeled fragments out of which the angel emerges suggest clay’s original state. The spirit lives forever, Snyder implies, even though the flesh does not.” and, “By both drawing on the past and placing his work firmly in the context of the present, Snyder has brought his pieces into the dialogue about mortality and the body, which presently occupies the art world.” About his painted cutout figures featured in many of his public works and art galleries, Andre Michell Workman wrote in Artweek, April 11, 1981 “What is most compelling about Snyder’s new painted sculptures is the aura of happiness and optimism – the joie de vivre – which they exude.” Snyder has been represented by the Wenger Gallery in San Francisco, San Diego, Mexico City, and Los Angeles, the Allrich Gallery in San Francisco from 1976, alternating numerous ceramic and mixed media solo exhibitions until its closure in 1993, and Sloan Miyasato Fine Arts, San Francisco. Snyder has completed over twenty mixed media public works, including Promenade Stockton, California, Chicken Corn Soup & Homemade Ice Cream, Rockville, Maryland, and The Secret Ingredient, Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta. Snyder also completed four public commissions that were community based collaborations with children, including My Time, Stockton, California, Fantasy Island, Sunnyvale, California, Hey Buddy – Seen Any Moose? Fairbanks, Alaska, Look What I Found, Tacoma, Washington, and A Few of My Favorite Things, Albany, California. Snyder’s work is represented in the public and corporate collections of the SFO Museum, Oakland Museum of California, Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles, Monterey Museum of Art, University of California, Davis, The American Academy in Rome, Crocker Art Museum, TRW inc, Bank of America Center San Francisco, Pennsylvania State University, Hyatt, Kaiser Permanente, Oliver Carr Co., Washington DC, and Milpitas, California.

Dan Snyder is recorded with the occupation ceramicist. Recorded with the occupation educator. Recorded with the occupation sculptor. Recorded as ceramicist, sculptor and educator.