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DONZELLA LTD. PRESENTS DAVID HASKELL: BOOM BEACH
Donzella Ltd (Suite 1510) is pleased to announce Boom Beach, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with sculptor David Haskell, on view through Tuesday, June 30, 2026. The exhibition will present approximately forty works created over the last five years, the majority produced specifically for this presentation.
Working across ceramics, bronze, and both cast and blown glass, Haskell presents a body of abstract, mostly tabletop-scale sculpture that references the natural world directly and implicitly. His forms allude to gravity, tides, erosion, and weather—forces that shape both landscape and material. Included in the exhibition are “assemblage sculptures” that resemble rock formations weathered by time and surf, alongside vessels that balance precariously atop a central base, closed yet pierced bodies, and several other distinct families of work.
Boom Beach takes its title from a stretch of rugged coastline on an island in Maine, where Haskell regularly studies rocks shaped by tides, surf, and storms. This landscape serves as a conceptual anchor for the work—and a counterpoint to the urban sensibility he brings to his practice. He is inspired by New York-based artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Isamu Noguchi, and Constantino Nivola, each of whom brought their relationship to the city into their sculpture.
Haskell’s pieces typically begin on the wheel as individual symmetrical forms, which are subsequently altered, punctured, stacked, and recombined. His tightly controlled glazing palette—primarily green and blue over a brown clay body—along with his innovative texturing techniques are central to the work’s visual and tactile power. Since 2024, he has expanded his practice to include cast bronze, cast glass, and hand-blown glass, working with artisans at Modern Art Foundry and Brooklyn Glass in New York City; Berengo Studio in Murano, Italy; and Fonderie Chapon in Paris, France. In Boom Beach, these materials are presented in conversation—the ceramic works flanked by bronze and glass expressions of the same sculptural vocabulary. Across all media, Boom Beach represents an evolving study in balance, structure, and materiality, pushing the boundaries of traditional ceramic practice while remaining grounded in close observation of the natural world.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
David Haskell (b. 1979) grew up in New York City and Connecticut. He received his BA from Yale University and was a Truman Scholar (2000) and a member of the inaugural Gates Cambridge Scholarship (2001). While studying architectural history at Cambridge University, he founded Topic magazine and later served as its editor in New York. He is the founding Executive Director of the Forum for Urban Design (now the Urban Design Forum) and a co-founder of Kings County Distillery. Haskell has worked at New York magazine since 2007 and has served as Editor in Chief since 2019. Haskell returned to ceramic wheel throwing in 2013, studying under Mark Davies in New York City. He has worked at Sculpture Space in Long Island City, shared a studio with artist Jesse Shaw, and now maintains a studio in the historic Gatehouses of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. His earlier exhibitions include Psychotic Plants (Coming Soon, New York, 2015), followed by additional exhibitions there in 2016 and 2017.
ABOUT DONZELLA LTD.
Founded in the early 1990s by Paul Donzella, Donzella Ltd. is a New York gallery recognized for its curated collections of post-war Italian and American design. Alongside these historical works, the gallery has developed a dynamic contemporary program featuring original furniture, lighting, and objects created by leading artists and designers, many produced exclusively for Donzella. Uniting rarity, craftsmanship, and innovation, Donzella presents a dialogue between iconic post-war masters and today’s most compelling contemporary voices.
