Voulkos employed a series of tools and techniques to alter the surfaces of these works. This unique partnership, and the resulting work, is considered by many curators and collectors to be the most exuberant period of Voulkos’s career. Peter Voulkos is also among those who raised ceramics to the non-utilitarian, aesthetic sphere. In contrast to his aggressively manipulated plate shapes of the late 1950s, the uniform disks of the 1970s reveal a more classical and reductive aesthetic. Although wheel-thrown by an assistant, the surfaces of these rather uniform discs were decorated by Voulkos himself. This work is registered under the Voulkos and Co. catalog number CR704.11-G. Provenance: Acuired directly from the artist by Pauline Annon, Los Angeles | Bonhams, 20th Century … In 1959 Voulkos became professor of design and sculpture at the University of California at Berkeley. Peter Voulkos: Stacks is the inaugural exhibition of the gallery’s new two-level exhibition space at 515 West 29th St. in New York. Voulkos viewed the circular format as a thick, three-dimensional plane on whose surface he could fuse his continuing interest in both abstract expressionist drawing and sculpture. Native American cultures rely on the coiling techniques, whereas peoples of most other parts of the world used the potter's wheel What Japanese technique did ceramic artist Peter Voulkos … Peter Voulkos is also memorable for the live ceramics-scultping sessions he would lead in front of his students, demonstrating live the hard work being his ceramics style, and his talent throughout this process. Connections is the Renwick Gallery’s dynamic ongoing permanent collection presentation, featuring more than 80 objects celebrating craft as a discipline and an approach to living differently in the modern world. degree at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. This created a sismic reaction in the ceramics world, both for the grotesquerie of the sculptures’ shapes and the genious marriage of arts and craft, and accelerated his transfer to UC Berkeley. PETER VOULKOS – (1924 – 2002) Ron Kuchta stated that “Peter Voulkos was the most charismatic and powerfully expressionistic artist to use clay as his principal medium in America.”1 When Voulkos died of a heart attack in 2002 following a workshop in Bowling Green, OH, an era came to an end. He pushed the limits of clay sculpture but turned to bronze so that he could create even larger works with forms that projected out into space. His Black Mountain connections led to his meeting Franz Kline and other abstract expressionist artists in New York. Video URL He found inspiration in Zen philosophy, Spanish guitar, the Egyptian pyramids, and in cocaine, which landed him in a rehabilitation center. Your email address & the video URL are required. It is from his time as Resident Director (1951-1954) that the lineage of his mature work, later in full bloom during his tenure at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, California, can be traced. [2], Peter Voulkos was born the third of five children to Greek immigrant parents, Aristovoulos I. Voulkopoulos, anglicized and shortened to Harry (Aris) John Voulkos and Effrosyni (Efrosine) Peter Voulalas. Online Courses In the ’50s, before the emergence of conceptual or process art, he stunned the art world with his finished sculptures of clay. Voulkos’s sculptures are known for their visual weight, their freely-formed construction and their aggressive and energetic decoration. Please email the gallery to view more works by Peter Voulkos. Typically, he spontaneously brushed vivid slips, or epoxy paints onto their altered surfaces. Peter Voulkos: Breaking with Tradition. Moreover, unlike his earlier series of slip-decorated plate forms, the later series is essentially monochromatic. The artist eschewed his traditional training and instead of creating smooth, well-thrown glazed vessels he started to work gesturally with raw clay, frequently marring his work with gashes and punctures. See available design, sculpture, and prints and multiples for sale and learn about the artist. For videos on Instagram you will need the Video Embed code which can be copy & pasted into the Video Embed Code box below. Frank Lloyd Gallery presents Peter Voulkos Page. During 1973–74, Voulkos produced a limited edition of two hundred decorated earthenware plates, specifically for a multiples project initiated by curator Lee Nordness. Panagiotis Voulkos January 2. The artist actually exhibited his circular forms as “ plate drawings,” and indeed, each manipulated surface suggests a landscape image, a different configuration, or plotting of space. “As they were scaling up … Returning to Montana in 1952, he established a pottery workshop in Helena. As a public health precaution due to COVID-19, all Smithsonian museums are closed temporarily beginning November 23. [8], In 1954, after founding the art ceramics department at the Otis College of Art and Design, called the Los Angeles County Art Institute, his work rapidly became abstract and sculptural. Sgraffito markings and surface perforations are relatively restrained, and often kept to a minimum. In the mid-1950s, he had virtually reinvented the field by introducing into clay, issues and techniques previously restricted to contemporary painting and sculpture. He had first experimented with platelike forms in the late 1950s and early 1960s, slashing, gouging, pinching, tearing, and rearranging their common, archetypal shapes. There he worked as an apprentice in an iron foundry until he was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Force. [10] Among his students were many ceramic artists who became well known in their own right. Although fired in a gas kiln, their natural coloration gave them a traditional, Japanese wood-fired appearance. Kenneth R. Trapp and Howard Risatti Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998). For Sale on 1stDibs - Wood fired stoneware charger by Peter Voulkos (American, 1924-2002). On view in our current exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, Peter Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years, are three of the artist’s large-scale paintings: Blue Remington, Red Through Black #3, and Falling Red.Some people may be surprised to find paintings in Voulkos’ oeuvre, but that’s what makes their discovery (at least for me) all the more exciting. Peter Voulkos was an American sculptor of Greek heritage. Videos must already be on Youtube, Facebook, Vimeo, etc… Go to the video on one of these services and copy the URL and place it in the Video URL box below. Voulkos Speaks Interview by Rick Berman. He established the ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and at UC Berkeley. All public programs are online only, on-site public tours and events are currently suspended. Aug 12, 2020 - Explore S Blattner Held's board "Sculpture" on Pinterest. He is acknowledged for raising ceramics to a higher rank of pensiveness and articulation of a person’s ideas. Cross, 1959, is one of many ceramic works by Peter Voulkos on view at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design as part of an exhibition devoted to the mid-century sculptor’s breakthrough years (photo by Ed Watkins, courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design). Description: Peter Voulkos Untitled Plate USA, 1973 wheel thrown stoneware with porcelain pass-throughs and cobalt oxide/slip with clear glaze 3.25 h x 18.75 dia in (8 x 48 cm) Signed and dated to reverse: [Voulkos 73]. Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years, on view from October 18, 2016, through March 15, 2017. [2][4], Voulkos studied painting and printmaking at Montana State College, in Bozeman (now Montana State University), where he was introduced to ceramics[2] (Frances Senska, who established the ceramics arts program, was his teacher). This unique partnership, and the resulting work, is considered by many curators and collectors to be the most exuberant period of Voulkos… During shaping he would vigorously tear, pound, and gouge their surfaces. [4], He died of a heart attack on February 16, 2002,[2] after conducting a college ceramics workshop at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, demonstrating his skill to a live audience. New York, NY (October 18, 2016) The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) presents Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years, on view from October 18, 2016, through March 15, 2017.Spanning the years 1953–1968, the exhibition is the first to focus exclusively on the early career of Peter Voulkos, whose radical techniques and ideas opened up new possibilities for clay that are still being felt today. The exhibition reveals the major role Voulkos played in raising conservative ceramics beyond its accepted limits to where traditional wheel-thrown, slab-built, glazed clay techniques were transformed into the fine art of Abstract Expressionist sculpture. [2], In 1951 Voulkos and Autio became the first resident artists at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, in Helena, Montana. To work on an enormous scale, Voulkos borrowed structural methods from architecture and devised a way [4] In 1959, he presented for the first time his heavy ceramics during the exhibition at the Landau Gallery in Los Angeles. A tremendously virile and productive potter, many of his pots measure more than half his height. Varied in scale, format, and level of finish, the nine models in this exhibition offer windows into the creative process, with work by Jackie Ferrara, Sol LeWitt, Claes Oldenburg, and Beverly Pepper, among others. Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years is a 16-year window into Peter Voulkos’ experimentation with ceramic between 1953 and 1968. Signed and dated: [VOULKOS 78]. Voulkos viewed the circular format as a thick, three-dimensional plane on whose surface he could fuse his continuing interest in both abstract expressionist drawing and sculpture. [7], In 1953, Voulkos was invited to teach a summer session ceramics course at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. Peter Voulkos is known for Abstract Expressionist ceramic sculpture and plates characterized by large-scale, unglazed fractured surfaces that set the stage for the mid-twentieth century break with traditional concepts of clay, functional pots, and the potter. Voulkos' radical methods and ideas during this period fundamentally transformed his field in … Insert Text below, The Akio Takamori Artist Page is coming together nicely, see https://claystation.com/artists/akio-takamori/, Started project Akio Takamori https://claystation.com/artists/akio-takamori/ Set up an automation to have Akio Takamori Youtube videos feed into the site. [12] He is most commonly identified as a Abstract Expressionist ceramist.[2]. For centuries clay had been associated with the refinements of craft. Few artists can revolutionize an ancient medium, but Peter Voulkos did just that when he brought ceramics into the realm of fine art starting in the late 1950s. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Force from 1943 to 1946, he entered Montana State College, earning a B.S. At a New York auction in 2001, a 1986 sculpture by Peter Voulkos was sold $72,625 to a European museum. By 1976, when Untitled [1993.54.21] was made, Voulkos’ interest in the platter shape had increased markedly. Pete had served as professor of ceramics at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1959 (he retired in 1985). Peter Voulkos was indisputably a pioneer who changed the dynamic of ceramics: both its look as well as its time honored techniques. email the gallery to view more works by Peter Voulkos. Support Claystation on Patreon! Born in Montana to Greek parents, Peter Voulkos worked his way through high school and then hitchhiked to Portland, Oregon. Post Title With the support of the G.I. Originally trained as a functional potter, Voulkos defied mid-century craft dictums of proper technique and form. Video Embed Code Please fill in the rest of the information if you can. Keep in touch by subscribing to news and updates from SAAM and Renwick Gallery. Peter Voulkos exhibited these new works in shows at the Landau Gallery in Los Angeles, which announced to the world a new way of approaching ceramics. Peter Voulkos: Stacks is the inaugural exhibition to commemorate the gallery’s new two-level exhibition space. We are not announcing a reopening date at this time and will provide updates on our websites and social media. But by leaving gaping perforations in the concave surface, the artist deliberately introduced light and space into the aesthetic equation. Voulkos started this new trend while in Los Angeles in the 1950s, saying «there was a certain energy around L.A. at the time». 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