Contemporary American ceramic artist Richard Hirsch and American ceramic artist Peter Voulkos' Altar Bowl with Weapon is raku-fired, hand built and hand sculptured. It was fired in Peter Callas' wood fired kiln during a workshop with Richard Hirsch, Peter Voulkos, Don Reitz and Janet Mansfield at his studio in New Jersey. Hirsch regards artistic collaboration as an exchange of mutual influence, its character reflected in the finished products. Three separate pieces of wood or salt fired stoneware are assembled to create this sculpture. Therefore underscoring the dramatic disparity between parts, honed, controlled base, roughly hewn, rock-like vessel, wrought, sharp, angular blade. "Some wondered whether I shouldn’t just present the weapons in all their variations on the wall in the manner in which the actual artifacts are presented in museums. To me, that missed the point. The idea was to juxtapose a weapon with a vessel. It was the dialogue between weapon and container that was the issue. I wanted the viewer to confront the connection one might have with the other (nurturing, adversarial, utilitarian, sexual, etc.) Some were rather frightening, alluding to a sacrificial ceremony. Ultimately, that dialogue was a construct of mine. I never found any precedent for juxtaposing a weapon with a vessel." Signed and dated by the artists.
Provenance: This sculpture was acquired directly from Richard Hirsch.
Peter Voulkos brief bio:
Voulkos, American ceramics artist (born Jan. 29, 1924, Bozeman, Mont.—died Feb. 16, 2002, Bowling Green, Ohio), helped the craft of pottery gain acceptance as an art form through his creation of ceramic works that were highly esteemed for their originality. After earning degrees at Montana State College (B.S., 1951) and the California College of Arts and Crafts (M.F.A., 1952), Voulkos taught pottery for a summer at Black Mountain (N.C.) College. His ceramic pieces—many of which were created spontaneously—were often tall, craggy forms whose rough-edged surfaces had been torn, punctured, or slashed. Voulkos taught at the Los Angeles County Art Institute from 1954 to 1959 and at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1959 to 1985; he established ceramics departments at both institutions. He won the Rodin Museum Prize at the first Paris Biennale in 1959 and was the winner of a Guggenheim fellowship in 1984. Voulkos received the College Art Association’s Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1997.
Richard Hirsch brief bio:
In the field of contemporary ceramic, Rick Hirsch has earned an international reputation. He has achieved this recognition by engaging in numerous diversified professional activities. Through efforts in university teaching, exhibits, writing, lecturing and researching he has risen to worldwide prominence.
In 1975, Hirsch co-authored a book entitled Raku, published by Watson-Guptill. This was the first comprehensive text to address the new innovations developing in the west that were transforming traditional Japanese Raku. Also, in the same year, Hirsch became a founding faculty member of The Program in Artistry at Boston University. Currently, Hirsch is a Professor Emeritus at The School for American crafts which is a part of Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. His university teaching career now spans well over four decades.
Repeatedly, Hirsch has participated in several milestone exhibitions and publications. Significant shows include; The Evolution of American Art in Craft Media Since 1945; Echoes: Historical References in Contemporary Ceramics; American Ceramics Now; Raku: Origins, Impact and Contemporary Expression; and Convergences: The Presence of the Past in Contemporary American Ceramics.
Frequently his work appears in book and magazine publications, such as; Overseas Contemporary Ceramic Art Classics by Baiming, China; Raku Investigations into Fire by David Jones, England; The History of American Ceramics from 1607 to the Present by Elaine Levin, New York; World Contemporary Ceramics by Baiming, China; and Firing, Philosophies within Contemporary Ceramic Practice by David Jones, England.
Several museums have included his work for their permanent collections. These include; The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC; The High Museum of Art, Atlanta; The Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; The Taipei County Yinko Ceramics Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; and the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto, Canada.
In 1984, Hirsch was elected as a permanent member of The International Ceramics Academy, a world-wide organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. A recipient of a William J. Fulbright Research Scholar Award in 2002, Hirsch has also received several Individual Artists Grants. Most recently he was honored by The Rochester Institute of Technology, with the Board of Trustees' Outstanding Scholarship Award. Recently Hirsch collaborated with Dr. Scott Meyer on his biography, the book is entitled With Fire: Richard Hirsch and is published by The Cary Graphic Arts Press at RIT, ISBN-13: 978-1-933360-97-3.
Amid the ever-shifting sands of change and new trends that is prevalent in contemporary ceramics, Richard Hirsch has maintained his steadfast personal aesthetic and continues to make a significant contribution to his field.
