Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos) ( 1924-2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art. He established the ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and at UC Berkeley.
After high school, Peter Voulkos worked as a molder's apprentice at a ship's foundry in Portland. In 1943, he was drafted into the United States Army during the Second World War, serving as an airplane gunner in the Pacific.
Voulkos studied painting and printmaking at Montana State College, in Bozeman (now Montana State University), where he was introduced to ceramics that quickly became a passion. His 25 pounds of clay allowed by semester by the school was not enough, so he managed to spot a source of quality clay from the tires of the trucks that would stop by the restaurant where he worked part-time.
He earned his MFA in ceramics from California College of the Arts and Crafts, in Oakland. Afterwards, he returned to Bozeman, and began his career in a pottery business with classmate Rudy Autio, producing functional dinnerware.
In 1951 Voulkos and Autio became the first resident artists at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, in Helena, Montana. 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.
In 1953, Voulkos was invited to teach a summer session ceramics course at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. After the summer at Black Mountain, he changed his approach to creating ceramics. 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.
In 1954, after founding the art ceramics department at the Otis College of Art and Design, his work rapidly became abstract and sculptural. In 1959, he presented for the first time his heavy ceramics during the exhibition at the Landau Gallery in Los Angeles. This created a seismic reaction in the ceramics world, both for the grotesquerie of the sculptures' shapes and the genius marriage of arts and craft, and accelerated his transfer to UC Berkeley.
He moved to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1959, where he also founded the ceramics program, which grew into the Department of Design. In the early 1960s, he set up a bronze foundry off-campus, anticipating the metal casted Wurster Hall, and started exhibiting his work at NY's Museum of Modern Art.
At a New York auction in 2001, a 1986 sculpture by Peter Voulkos was sold $72,625 to a European museum.
© 2019. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Peter Voulkos or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
After high school, Peter Voulkos worked as a molder's apprentice at a ship's foundry in Portland. In 1943, he was drafted into the United States Army during the Second World War, serving as an airplane gunner in the Pacific.
Voulkos studied painting and printmaking at Montana State College, in Bozeman (now Montana State University), where he was introduced to ceramics that quickly became a passion. His 25 pounds of clay allowed by semester by the school was not enough, so he managed to spot a source of quality clay from the tires of the trucks that would stop by the restaurant where he worked part-time.
He earned his MFA in ceramics from California College of the Arts and Crafts, in Oakland. Afterwards, he returned to Bozeman, and began his career in a pottery business with classmate Rudy Autio, producing functional dinnerware.
In 1951 Voulkos and Autio became the first resident artists at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, in Helena, Montana. 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.
In 1953, Voulkos was invited to teach a summer session ceramics course at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. After the summer at Black Mountain, he changed his approach to creating ceramics. 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.
In 1954, after founding the art ceramics department at the Otis College of Art and Design, his work rapidly became abstract and sculptural. In 1959, he presented for the first time his heavy ceramics during the exhibition at the Landau Gallery in Los Angeles. This created a seismic reaction in the ceramics world, both for the grotesquerie of the sculptures' shapes and the genius marriage of arts and craft, and accelerated his transfer to UC Berkeley.
He moved to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1959, where he also founded the ceramics program, which grew into the Department of Design. In the early 1960s, he set up a bronze foundry off-campus, anticipating the metal casted Wurster Hall, and started exhibiting his work at NY's Museum of Modern Art.
At a New York auction in 2001, a 1986 sculpture by Peter Voulkos was sold $72,625 to a European museum.
© 2019. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Peter Voulkos or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Mr Peter Voulkos |
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| The Breakthrough Years at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York |
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| 1855, Stack |
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| 1950, Cookie Jar |
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| 1950-60, Bowl |
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| 1952, Bull bottle |
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| 1952, Storage Jar |
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| 1952-54, Lidded Jar |
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| 1953, Covered Jar |
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| 1954, Vase |
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| 1955, Vessel |
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| 1955-56, Untitled |
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| 1956, Rasgeado |
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| 1956, Jar |
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| 1956, untitled USA |
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| 1956, Vase |
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| 1958, Pasadena Art Museum. Behind him from left to right are his ceramic sculptures 5000 Feet and Rondena and his painting Flying Black |
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| 1958, Pot |
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| 1958, Rondena |
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| 1959, Flying Red Through Black |
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| 1959, Sitting bull |
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| 1959, Tientos |
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| 1960-64, Untitled |
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| 1960, Red River |
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| 1960, Untitled |
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| 1963, Plate |
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| 1968, Anada |
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| 1973, Gas Fired Charger |
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| 1974, Untitled Stack |
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| 1975, Untitled Ceramic Vessel |
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| 1978, Hole in One |
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| 1981, Untitled Plate |
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| 1981, Wood Fired Charger |
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| 1994, Big Ed |
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| 1995, Stack, |
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| 2016 cover of ArtForum (January) |
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