Poul Voulkos Ceramist

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

stretching the inflexible definitions of what constitutes painting, sculpture and other media. Among these avant-gardists was Peter Voulkos.” In 1954, Voulkos was hired as chairman of the fledgling ceramics department at the L.A. County Art Institute, now Otis College of Art and Design, and during the five years that followed, he led what came to be known as the "Clay Revolution." Students like John Mason, Paul Soldner, Ken Price and Billy Al Bengston, all of whom went on to become respected artists, were among his foot soldiers in the battle to free clay from its handicraft associations. By the late 1950s, Voulkos had established an international reputation for his muscular fired-clay sculptures, which melded Zen attitudes toward chance with the emotional fervor of Abstract Expressionist painting. Some 20 works -- including five "Stacks" (4-foot-tall sculptures) as well as giant slashed-and-gouged plates and works on paper -- recently went on view at the Frank Lloyd Gallery. This ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

clay is magic,” he says. “The minute you touch it, it moves, so you've got to move with it. It's like a ritual. I always work standing up, so I can move my body around. I don't sit and make dainty little things.” As a child, Voulkos did not imagine a future as an internationally influential artist. The third of five children born to Greek immigrant parents in Bozeman, Mont., he could not afford a college education and anticipated a career constructing floor molds for engine castings at a foundry in Portland, Ore., where he went to work in 1942, after high school. But in 1943, he was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps and was stationed in the central Pacific as an airplane armorer and ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: