Arthur Ames was born in Illinois in 1906 and later moved to California, where he studied art in San Francisco. After meeting his future wife and enameling partner, Jean Goodwin, the two of them became educators in southern California. While both were modernists, Arthur’s work was more abstract, whereas Jean focused more on idealized subjects.

Jean Goodwin Ames (1903-1986), painter, muralist, sculptor, and ceramicist was born and raised in Santa Ana, California. Ames first studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1931, and a Master in Fine Arts from the University of Southern California in 1937. After receiving her B.E. from UCLA in 1931, Jean taught art from 1933-1936 at Citrus High School and Junior College. Between 1940 and 1969 Jean Ames served as a faculty member at both Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School.

While attending USC she became interested in mural decoration. In a ceramics class, taught by Glen Lukens, she learned ancient glaze methods and, for her master’s thesis, in the lobby of the Science building at USC created a majolica tile mural, Youth and Science. While attending Lukens’ evening ceramics class she also met her husband, and fellow painter, Arthur Ames, and in 1941 they married. After several years of experimentation, Arthur and Jean perfected their craft, and by 1955 were practicing all three of their decorative art mediums for ceramic: glazed tile, glass mosaic, and enamel.

Jean and Arthur collaborated on a number of projects throughout their careers, including decorative murals for the mural division of the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.). While working for the W.P.A. they became leaders in the revival of ancient decorative mural techniques, and were among the first in California to use mosaics. In 1937 they created two W.P.A. sponsored mosaic murals in the patio of the Newport Union High School in Orange County. In 1939 they also worked with the fresco secco technique in another W.P.A. project – three murals titled Agriculture, Recreation, and Conservation – for the Council of San Diego County. Their work for the W.P.A. mosaics was the springboard to their long and successful career.

Jeans’ tapestries and mosaics decorate buildings throughout Southern California. Many of these include decorative architectural commissions for churches, such as a mosaic altar for Claremont Community Church (1955), and twenty-four enamel and copper panels used on the entrance doors at the Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills (1956). In 1964, three tapestries – jointly titled the Dance of Destiny – which were created in Aubusson, France, were placed in the foyer of Garrison Theatre at Scripps College.. Other works include the mosaic fountain on the Pomona Mall, and the entrance statue at the West Covina Broadway store. During these years Ames continued to teach at Scripps, served as Chair of the Art Department at the Graduate School from 1962 to 1969, and became Professor Emerita in 1969.

Jean Ames also gave a number of her works and those of her husband to Scripps College, whose permanent art collection consists of around 8,000 objects. She also donated post-war ceramics Laura Andresen, Shoji Hamada, Glen Lukens, Harrison McIntosh, Gertrude and Otto Natzler, Paul Soldner, and Peter Voulkos.