Theaster Gates Buys Pickard China, America's Last Fine China Maker

Theaster Gates has bought Pickard China. The 53-year-old, Chicago-based artist acquired the company for an undisclosed sum, according to a portrait session and report from the Pickard China factory in Antioch, Illinois, photographed by Akilah Townsend for NPR.

Pickard China is the sole remaining maker of fine china in the United States. Gates, one of Chicago's most prominent contemporary artists, now owns it outright.

The purchase marks a new direction for the artist's career. Gates has long built his practice around acquisition and transformation — buying neglected buildings and materials on Chicago's South Side and converting them into cultural assets — and the Pickard deal extends that strategy into American manufacturing.

Gates posed for the portrait at the Antioch factory, confirming his personal involvement in the business rather than a passive investment.

The move raises questions about production that the source does not yet answer: whether Gates will commission new artist-designed china lines, expand the factory's output, or integrate its craftsmen into future installations. What the deal establishes now is ownership of the last American fine china manufacturer by an artist whose work has consistently fused art, craft and urban regeneration.