Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years

This exhibition, co-curated with Andrew Perchuk of the Getty Research Institute and Assistant Curator Barbara Paris Gifford, was the first exhibition to focus on the early career of Peter Voulkos, whose radical methods and ideas during this period opened up the possibilities for clay in ways that are still being felt today. The exhibition opened at the Museum of Arts and Design and subsequently traveled to the Renwick Gallery.

While trained as a traditional potter, Voulkos defied mid-century craft dictums of proper technique and form to completely reinvent his medium. He combined wheel throwing with slab building, traditional glazes with epoxy paint, figuration with abstraction, and made huge ceramic structures with complex internal engineering. The exhibition featured 30 examples from this crucial body of early work (1953-1968), most of which had not been exhibited on the East Coast for four decades. The accompanying scholarly catalogue is published by Black Dog.

Peter Voulkos in his Los Angeles studio