Bluffton University will host an exhibition of ceramic sculpture by award-winning 1956 graduate Jack Earl, beginning Sept. 30 in the Grace Albrecht Gallery of the Sauder Visual Arts Center.

The exhibit is free and open to the public through Oct. 27; gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 1-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. A reception will be held for Earl from 9:30-11 a.m. on Homecoming Saturday, Oct. 12—the day after the artist receives this year’s Professional Achievement Award at Bluffton’s Alumni Awards banquet.

Earl has been a widely known ceramic artist for more than 40 years. One of his porcelain sculptures was chosen for “Objects USA,” an exhibition that toured the country from 1969-71. Shortly thereafter came his first solo exhibition, at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (now the Museum of Arts and Design) in New York City. He has since had numerous solo shows in major U.S. cities, and his varied sculptures have been part of group exhibitions nationwide and abroad.

The list of museums displaying Earl’s art includes the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Art Institute of Chicago. His work also appears on the Bluffton campus. A bust of Menno Simons—with a varsity “B” and backward baseball cap—sits between Centennial and Founders halls, while a bust of Earl’s college art instructor, John Klassen, and “Bill Takes Art at Bluffton” are in Marbeck Center’s Gallery Lounge.

Among the Lakeview, Ohio, resident’s honors are two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and designation in 1997 as a fellow of the American Craft Council.