Vulkos, Peter

Peter Vulcos and Peter Callas are working on the 1998 stack in Belvedere, New Jersey.

Early Life

Peter Vulkos was born the third of five children from immigrant parents from Greece , Aristulos I. Vulkopoulos (Harry (Aris) John Vulkos) and Effrosini (Efrosina) Peter Vulalas ^{[6] [7]} . After school, he worked as a foundry apprentice at a shipyard in Portland. In 1943, Peter Vulkos was drafted into the United States Army during World War II and served as a rifleman in the Pacific Ocean ^{[6] [8]} .

Pottery Specialization

Vulkos studied painting and engraving at Montana State College in Bozeman (now Montana State University ), where he became interested in ceramics ^[6] , his teacher was Francis Senska, creator of the curriculum on the art of ceramics ^{[9] [10]} . 25 pounds of clay given out in college was not enough, and in search of material, Vulkos collected clay from truck tires, which stopped at the restaurant where he worked part time ^[6] .

He received his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in ceramics from California College of Arts and Crafts in Auckland. After which he returned to Bozeman and began his career in the pottery business with classmate Rudi Autio , who produces functional cookware. ^[6]

In 1951, Vulkos and Autio became the first resident artists of the Archie Bray Ceramic Arts Foundation in Helen, Montana. ^[11]

In 1953, Vulcos was invited to a summer ceramics course at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. ^{[7] [12]} After this, the artist abandoned his traditional training, and instead of creating smooth, classic ceramic forms and vessels, he began experimenting with unprocessed clay, often leaving his work with cuts and punctures ^[12] .

In 1954, after the foundation of the Department of Art Ceramics at the Otis College of Art and Design, called the Los Angeles County Institute of Art, his work began to be abstract in nature ^[8] . In 1959, he first presented his “heavy” ceramics at an exhibition at the Landau Gallery in Los Angeles. This caused heated discussions in the world of ceramics: both the grotesque forms of sculptures and the combination of art and craft. Soon Vulkos moved to the University of California at Berkeley. ^[6]

University of California, Berkeley Department of Ceramics

In 1959, immediately after moving to the University of California at Berkeley , he formed a training program in ceramics, which, later, became the basis of the Department of Design ^{[11] [13]} . In the early 1960s, he built a bronze foundry off campus and began exhibiting at the New York Museum of Modern Art ^[11] .

In 1967, Vulkos became a professor at Berkeley ^[13] and continued to teach until 1985. ^[fourteen]

At a auction in New York in 2001, a sculpture by Peter Vulkos in 1986 was sold at 72,625 US dollars to the European Museum. ^[8]

He died of a heart attack on February 16, 2002, ^[6] after holding a college ceramics workshop at the University of Bowling Green, Ohio. ^[15]

Description

While his early works were burned in electric and gas furnaces, later he mainly used Peter Kallas anagamas . Peter Vulkos is also one of those who contributed to the popularity of ceramics as an aesthetic art, and not just as a utilitarian material. When creating the ceramics department at the University of California at Berkeley, his students were allowed to make a kettle “only if it didn’t work” ^[16]. It is often called an abstract expressionist ceramicist ^[6] .

Vulkos sculptures are known for their volume, freely formed structure and aggressive and energetic design. During molding, he vigorously tore, rubbed and punched their surfaces of the sculpture. In some periods of his career, he cast bronze sculptures, and some of the early ceramic works were covered with glass or paint.

Peter Vulkos conducted many lectures and workshops on ceramics, where he demonstrated the creation of sculptures ^{[8] [6]}

In 1979, Peter Kallas introduced Vulkos to using the Japanese Anagama wood-burning stove. Kallas collaborated with the arthur for the next 23 years. Much of Vulkos’s later work was burned at Kallas’s anagama , which was first in Pirmont, New York, and then in Belvidere, New Jersey. This unique partnership and related work, according to many curators and collectors, is the most productive period in Vulkos's career.

• 1959: Rodin Prize ^[8]
• 1984: Guggenheim Fellowship ^[8]
• 1997: Outstanding Achievement Award from College of the Art Association ^[8]

Margaret Cohn - First Wife

• Pir - daughter, an artist specializing in polymer clay ^[17]

Ann - second wife

• Aris - son ^[6]

In the early 1980s, Peter Vulkos underwent treatment for alcohol and cocaine addiction ^{[8] [6]} .

• Rhodes, Daniel (1959). Stoneware and Porcelain: The Art of High-Fired Pottery . Philadelphia: Chilton Book Company, Pennsylvania, 1959.
• Coplans, John (1966). Abstract Expressionist Ceramics (exhibition catalog). The University of California, Irvine, 1966.
• Read, Herbert (1964). A Concise History of Modern Sculpture . New York: Oxford University Press, New York.
• Beard, Geoffrey (1969). Modern Ceramics London: Studio Vista, United Kingdom, 1969.
• Fischer, Hal (November 1978). The Art of Peter Voulkos, Artforum , pp. 41-47.
• Slivka, Rose (1978). Peter Voulkos: A Dialogue with Clay . New York: New York Graphic Society in association with American Crafts Council.
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1978). Peter Voulkos: A Retrospective 1948-1978 . San Francisco, California.
• Preaud, Tamara and Serge Gauthier (1982). Ceramics of the 20th Century . New York: Rizzoli International.
• MacNaughton, Mary et al. (1994). Revolution in Clay: The Marer Collection of Contemporary Ceramics . Scripps College, Claremont, California, in association with The University of Washington, Seattle.
• Slivka, Rose and Karen Tsujimoto (1995). The Art of Peter Voulkos . Kodansha International in collaboration with the Oakland Museum, Oakland, California.
• Danto, Arthur Coleman and Janet Koplos (1999). Choice from America: Modern American Ceramics . 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands: Het Kruithuis, Museum of Contemporary Art. pp. 9-12, 16-9, 104-7, 133.
• The American Art Book (1999). London: Phaidon Press Limited. p. 467.
• Cooper, Emmanuel (2000). Ten Thousand Years of Pottery . 4th ed. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Faberman, Hilarie, et al. (2004). Picasso to Thiebaud: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Collections of Stanford University Alumni and Friends . Palo Alto, California: Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University.
• Sorkin, Jenni. Peter Voulkos: Rocking Pot // Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957 . - Yale University Press, 2015. - P. 272–273. - ISBN 9780300211917 .