Finding Win Ng

Ten years ago in Nevada City, California, I encountered two coffee mugs in the front seat of an old Mercedes station wagon belonging to Joe Meade, an artist and collector. They immediately caught my eye: oversize and made of white porcelain, they were wrapped in charming illustrations, quirky line drawings depicting a mass of rabbits tumbling in playful, erotic entanglements. “Those are cool,” I said. “What are they?” “Woah, dude, you haven’t heard of Taylor and Ng?” Joe was delighted. “You’re gonna love this. It’s very Bay Area.”

I held the cartoon-animal-orgy mugs in my lap as we drove to Grass Valley, and Joe, with his encyclopedic knowledge of California ceramics, gave me a crash course on their cultural significance and the life of their maker, the late artist Win Ng. Created for the home-goods company that Win cofounded in 1960, the mugs were subtly provocative mementos of mid-century San Francisco, evoking the sexual revolution and the gay civil rights movement. Though they joyfully depicted free love, they were sold in high-end department stores and made their way into the homes of everyday people—not just those inclined toward countercultural and queer lifestyles. In addition to running his company, Joe said, Win Ng was an exceptionally talented abstract sculptor working at a pivotal moment in California ceramics, a time when the medium was expanding beyond its siloed place as craft and into the world of fine art.