The California Clay Movement (or American Clay Revolution) was a school of

ceramic art Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take varied forms, including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is a visual art. While ...

that emerged in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

in the 1950s. The movement was part of the larger transition in crafts from "designer-craftsman" to "artist-craftsman". The editor of ''

Craft Horizons ''Craft Horizons'' is a periodical magazine that documents and exhibits crafts, craft artists, and other facets of the field of American craft. The magazine was founded by Aileen Osborn Webb and published from 1941 to 1979. It included editoria ...

'', New York-based Rose Slivka, became an enthusiastic advocate of the movement.

Peter Voulkos

Peter Voulkos Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic c ...

was one of the movement's driving forces. He established the Ceramic Center at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the

Otis College of Art and Design Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California, United States. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is located in the former IBM Aero ...

), where he created massive, abstract ceramic sculptures. He felt that his free-form ceramic works were like jazz compositions: improvisational and free spirited. Voulkos began creating ever larger ceramic works to break away from the conventional arts and crafts of his day. Some of his work, named "plates", "ice buckets" or "tea bowls", were "deconstructed" traditional forms of glazed pottery. Others, such as his "stacks", were non-utilitarian and purely sculptural. During a career that lasted almost half a century, Voulkos made over 200 "stacks", some as much as in height. Writing about the clay movement in 1963, a reviewer in ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' said "Peter Voulkos' rough, ragged monuments are powerful weapons against the slick coffee-table pottery that often passes for modern art, and already a generation of fierce West Coast individualists has joined him at the barricades."

Pupils

Voulkos profoundly influenced

Jim Melchert Jim Melchert (né James Frederick Melchert; December 2, 1930 – June 1, 2023) was an American visual artist, arts administer, and professor. He is known for his ceramics and sculptures. Melchert was part of the Funk art movement. Early life a ...

, John Mason,

Kenneth Price Kenneth Price (February 16, 1935 – February 24, 2012) was an American artist who predominantly created ceramic sculpture. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute and Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design) in Los Angeles, befo ...

and

Paul Soldner Paul Edmund Soldner (April 24, 1921 – January 3, 2011) was an American ceramic artist and educator, noted for his experimentation with the 16th-century Japanese technique called raku, introducing new methods of firing and post firing, which bec ...

. Voulkos turned the Los Angeles County Art Institute into an important center for ceramic art between 1954 and 1959. Moving to the University of California in Berkeley he and sculptors such as Sidney Gordon and

Harold Paris Harold Persico Paris (1925–1979) was an American printmaker, sculptor and educator. He taught art classes at the University of California, Berkeley from 1963 until 1979. Early life and education Paris was born on August 16, 1925, in Edgemere ...

developed an influential school of sculpture. His pupils included

Billy Al Bengston Billy Al Bengston (June 7, 1934 – October 8, 2022) was an American visual artist and sculptor who lived and worked in Venice, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Bengston was probably best known for work he created that reflected California's " ...

Robert Arneson Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at University of California, Davis for nearly three decades. Early life and education Robert Carston Arnes ...

Nancy Selvin Nancy Selvin (born 1943) is an American sculptor, recognized for ceramic works and tableaux that explore the vessel form and balance an interplay of materials, minimal forms, and expressive processes.Muchnic, Suzanne. "Galleries," ''Los Angeles ...

and Stan Bitters. The work of Voulkos, Arneson and others typified Californian art in the 1950s and 1960s, and was featured in many exhibitions.

Stephen De Staebler Stephen De Staebler (March 24, 1933 – May 13, 2011) was an American sculptor, printmaker, and educator, he was best recognized for his work in clay and bronze. Totemic and fragmented in form, De Staebler's figurative sculptures call forth the m ...

was another influential sculptor working mostly in clay and bronze who has been associated with the California Clay movement. A reviewer said of him that "He practically invented his own art form by beating and buckling tons of clay into awesome mountainous landscapes, but his human sculptures are also very moving." Michael Frimkess is another master of the California clay movement. Frimkess was a student of Peter Voulkos, and adopted the

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

style of sculpture taught by Voulkos. In 2014, Frimkess received the Career Achievement Award from the

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

.Jessica Gelt, "Hammer Museum announces winners of 2014 Made in L.A. Mohn Awards", ''Los Agenels Times'', 18 August 2014.

Influence

Voulkos had huge influence, not just on potters and sculptors but even on painters. Awareness of the movement quickly spread. In 1959 the Guyanese artist

Donald Locke Donald Cuthbert Locke (17 September 1930 – 6 December 2010) was a Guyana, Guyanese artist who created drawings, paintings and sculptures in a variety of media. He studied in the United Kingdom, and worked in Guyana and the United Kingdom befor ...

obtained a grant to study for a master's degree in fine arts at

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

, a school in the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. There he met the artists Dave Cohen, Sheldon Kaganof and Dion Myers, who introduced the ideas of the California Clay Movement to Britain. For many years his work reflected their influence.

References

Citations Sources * * * * * * * * * {{refend Abstract art Avant-garde art American art movements Ceramic art Art in California