Peter Voulkos Important Vase, 1957
Glazed stoneware
An exceptional early work by Peter Voulkos, this monumental 1957 vessel belongs to the crucial period in which the artist was radically expanding the possibilities of postwar American ceramics. Built from wheel-thrown elements that were subsequently paddled, joined, tooled, and heavily worked by hand, the vase moves decisively away from conventional vessel form toward an expressive, sculptural language.
Its broad, wing-like body, compressed profile, and deeply scored surface exemplify Voulkos’s increasingly physical approach to clay during the late 1950s. The surface retains the direct evidence of making—incisions, gouges, ridges, and irregular passages of glaze—giving the work an immediacy that would become central to his mature practice.
This specific vase has an unusually distinguished exhibition and publication history. It was shown in the United States Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, where American craft and design were presented internationally at a defining moment for postwar culture. It was later included in major Voulkos retrospectives at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1978 and the Sezon Museum of Art in Japan in 1995.
The work is also illustrated and discussed in Rose Slivka’s important monograph Peter Voulkos: A Dialogue with Clay, p. 39, where it is identified as a 1957 stoneware pot made in Los Angeles from wheel-thrown parts, paddled and combined, with a tooled surface, white slip, and rutile glaze. Slivka further records its exhibition at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair and its provenance in the collection of James Melchert. The book image can be shown alongside the present photographs as direct documentary reference to this exact work.
Dimensions: 20 h × 29 w × 14 d in (51 × 74 × 36 cm)
Incised signature and date to lower edge: ‘Voulkos 57’. Registered in the Voulkos and Co. catalog.
Provenance
Collection of Jim and Maryanne Melchert
Private Collection, California
Exhibited
Contemporary American Art, United States Pavilion, Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles, Belgium, 18 April–21 July 1958
Peter Voulkos: A Retrospective 1948–1978, San Francisco Museum of Art, 17 February–2 April 1978, traveling exhibition
Peter Voulkos Retrospective, Sezon Museum of Art, Karuizawa, Japan, 2 January–20 February 1995, traveling exhibition
Literature
“U.S. Crafts at Brussels,” Craft Horizons, May/June 1958, p. 20
Rose Slivka, Peter Voulkos: A Dialogue with Clay, p. 39, illustrated
Peter Voulkos Retrospective, p. 62, pl. 31, illustrated
Condition
Very good condition. A few minor glaze losses to the ends of the widest portion.
