Cookies in Context: Raul Coronel
Friends -
The inspiration for my fall 2025 shoot comes from the work of the late and great Raul Coronel, who was a pioneer in the Southern California modernist ceramics scene.
His plates provide the perfect autumnal canvas for my Heritage Sourdough Cookies and I’m excited to introduce you to his story and his work.
The Mexicali-born Coronel moved to California at the age of 13 in 1939.
After a stint in the Marines (where he counted himself fortunate not to shoot anyone or be shot at) he returned to California, briefly studying at UC Berkeley before leaving for Oahu, Hawaii where he met his wife Leonore.
Moving back to California, he honed his ceramics skills at LA State and USC, and was also said to have studied at Pond Farm. During that time Leonore worked as a dental hygienist and he did teaching jobs, all the while saving money to open a studio of his own.
Coronel circa 1958.
In 1955 he opened his first studio in Venice Beach, employing unorthodox marketing strategies to generate interest in his work. "I kept all the lights on all the time. In the morning my wife and I would go and check the window for nose prints and hand prints," he said.
Before long he had a showroom in Malibu, a larger studio studio on Melrose, and his fashionable Malibu home was featured in The Los Angeles Times.
He was a favorite of collectors and interior designers of the time because he was constantly innovating. "As fast as I could think of something that I could use, or was needed out there that people are not doing, I would immediately do it."
His pieces ranged in style from abstract to figurative, and geometric to whimsical. But even when the grew to massive corporate commissions requiring the assistance of apprentices, they remained unmistakably Coronel.
He stopped sculpting in 1985 and passed away in 2022 at the age of 96.
