Image: Museum of Arts and Design, New York
The Museum of Arts and Design in New York is presenting ‘Alice Riehl’s Porcelain Florilegium,’ an installation of large-scale porcelain wall murals by the French artist. The exhibition, described by the museum as the first major U.S. museum presentation of Riehl’s work, remains on view through October 4, 2026, at MAD’s Jerome and Simona Chazen Building at 2 Columbus Circle.
Riehl’s murals draw on botanical imagery from medieval and Renaissance tapestries, French decorative arts, mythology, and sustained observation of plant life. Across the installation, porcelain is used not simply as a decorative surface but as a material for examining the place of flora within the modern city. The museum’s presentation emphasizes root systems, cycles of growth and decline, and the resilience of so-called pioneer plant species that can flourish in inhospitable urban environments.
The exhibition’s title refers to the florilegium, a historical term for a curated collection of botanical images or texts. At MAD, the idea is translated into a formal gathering of porcelain murals shaped by close looking, botanical study, and the physical demands of the medium. The presentation forms part of the museum’s commitment to contemporary craft and material innovation.
Riehl trained in porcelain at the French Ceramics Institute in Sèvres, beginning in 2003, and developed hand modeling as her primary method. Working directly with porcelain, she makes use of the material’s softness, unpredictability, and ability to reflect light. Subtle distortions introduced during firing remain visible in the finished works, giving the surfaces a sense of movement while preserving their structural precision.
In 2010, Riehl expanded her practice into large-scale mural installations, taking inspiration from monumental medieval tapestries found throughout Europe. Her porcelain surfaces occupy a space between textile and sculpture: lace and other delicate materials are pressed into soft clay to create layered textures, while asymmetrical compositions suggest movement across broad architectural fields. Botanical and marine forms move between abstraction and recognition, with details such as glaze variations and modeled elements becoming more apparent at close range.
Riehl lives and works in Paris. Her work has been commissioned for cultural, corporate, and retail settings, including the Chaumet flagship fine-jewelry showroom on Place Vendôme in Paris and Château Dauzac in France’s Bordeaux region. ‘Alice Riehl’s Porcelain Florilegium’ is supported by Todd Merrill Studio and a grant from Villa Albertine, as part of its post-residency program in partnership with the Albertine Foundation and supported by the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation. Additional funding comes from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. The exhibition continues through October 4, 2026.
