Princetonians: The Idealist Realist

Photo: Ricardo Barros

THE IDEALIST REALIST: At Princeton, G. Daniel Massad ’69 studied ceramics with Toshiko Takaezu, who became his lifelong mentor. After graduation, he earned an M.A. in English at the University of Chicago, but he returned to art. “I didn’t have to succeed, I simply had to try to make a living making art,” he says of pursuing an MFA in painting. “Amazingly enough, that happened.” Massad, who considers himself a “precisionist realist,” uses pastels to create still-life works like the one in the background. His work is in the permanent collections of several major museums, and he was recently included in an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.