Untitled+(Peter+Voulkos'+Plate)

Date: 1976
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/1993/1993.54.21_1a.jpg&max=460 width="314" height="307" link="@http://www.americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=33798"]] || Title: **Untitled**

Artist: **Peter Voulkos** Born: Bozeman, Montana 1924 Died: Bowling Green, Ohio 2002

Medium: thrown, hand-shaped, incised, pierced, oxide-washed, and glazed stoneware and porcelain Dimensions: 5 x 20 1/8 in. (12.8 x 51.1 cm) diam. Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of KPMG Peat Marwick

Accession: 1993.54.21 || Peter Voulkos (January 29, 1924 – 2002) popular name of Panagiotis Voulkos, was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his Abstract Expressionist ceramic sculptures, which bounded the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art.
 * Biographical Information: **

Born as Panagiotis Harry Voulkopoulos, 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, in Bozeman, Montana. He first studied painting and ceramics at Montana State University (then Montana State College) in Bozeman, then earned an MFA degree from the California College of the Arts. He began his career producing functional dinnerware in Bozeman, Montana. His talent was quickly recognized and he soon began winning prizes. In 1953, Voulkos was invited to teach a summer session ceramics course at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1954, after founding the ceramics department at the Otis College of Art and Design (then called the Los Angeles County Art Institute), his work rapidly became abstract and sculptural. He moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he also founded the ceramics department, and where he taught from 1959 until 1985. Among his students were many ceramic artists who became well known in their own right.

Voulkos' sculptures are famous for their visual weight, their freely-formed construction, and their aggressive and energetic decoration. He would vigorously tear, pound, and gouge the surfaces of his pieces. At some points in his career, he cast his sculptures in bronze; in other periods his ceramic works were glazed or painted, and he finished them with painted brushstrokes. In 1979 he was introduced to the use of wood kilns by Peter Callas; much of his late work is wood-fired.

By 1976, when //Untitled// [1993.54.21] was made, Voulkos' interest in the platter shape had increased markedly. He now threw the plates himself, often giving them a more sculptural character by varying the thickness of the rims. 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. 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.

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. Each is a variation on a simple theme. Sgraffito markings and surface perforations are relatively restrained, and often kept to a minimum. Moreover, unlike his earlier series of slip-decorated plate forms, the later series is essentially monochromatic. Generally uncolored, the platters retain their natural, cream-to-brick, earthenware tonality. Surface incisions and pass-throughs, however, were lightly washed with oxide for shading purposes, and then the plates were sprayed with a thin, transparent glaze. Although fired in a gas kiln, their natural coloration gave them a traditional, Japanese wood-fired appearance. Voulkos continued to make plates, but after 1978, they became larger and more sculptural, with greater variegations in color and tone.
 * [[image:pv.jpg]] ||

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
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