Peter Voulkos’s “pot shop” at the University of California, Berkeley, played a pivotal role in revolutionizing the field of ceramics in the mid-20th century. Established in 1959 when Voulkos was hired to teach at UC Berkeley, the pot shop was more than just a traditional ceramics studio—it became a creative hub where the boundaries of ceramics as an art form were pushed beyond functional pottery into the realm of abstract expressionism.
Voulkos, already a highly regarded ceramicist, brought an experimental and rebellious spirit to the studio. He encouraged his students to break away from traditional ceramics techniques and aesthetics, embracing spontaneity, improvisation, and large-scale sculptural forms. This approach mirrored the energy of the Abstract Expressionist painting movement that was emerging at the time, which Voulkos integrated into his own practice, creating bold, monumental, and often deconstructed ceramic pieces.
The pot shop at UC Berkeley attracted a generation of young artists eager to explore new possibilities in clay. Voulkos’s influence extended far beyond the classroom, as his studio became a gathering place for avant-garde artists, ceramists, and creatives. This period is widely credited with reshaping the landscape of contemporary ceramics, positioning clay not only as a craft material but as a legitimate medium for fine art.
The present lot was acquired from Voulkos by renowned American ceramic artist Michael Frimkess, who traded some of his own work for it during one of his frequent stays at the pot shop in the early 1960s.
Some evenings I create art. Sometimes I search art out. Sometimes I run into it accidentally.
Peter Voulkos
Peter Voulkos 1924–2002
Few artists can revolutionize an ancient medium, but Peter Voulkos did just that when he brought ceramics into the realm of fine art starting in the late 1950s. Born in Bozeman, Montana in 1924, he studied painting and ceramics at Montana State University and later received his MFA from California College of the Arts in Oakland. While Voulkos began his career by creating utilitarian objects such as bowls and vases that won him wide renown, he began to contemplate abstraction and other fine art principles when he spent the summer of 1953 teaching at Black Mountain College, there he met Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Josef Albers. From there, he visited New York, meeting many of the Abstract Expressionists.
Voulkos returned to California to teach at Los Angeles County Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design) from 1954 to 1959 and it was in this period that his works really began to evolve. As the decade came to a close, Voulkos moved away from creating functional items, instead morphing vase-like structures into sculpture. He slashed the clay in certain instances and aggressively applied paint to the forms like canvas. No longer content to create works that hid their process of creation, Voulkos made the very act of creation paramount to the understanding and appreciation of his work, much like the Abstract Expressionists that he had associated with.
Voulkos’ artistic output piqued the interest of Peter Selz, the Curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1960, he invited Voulkos to exhibit six of his paintings alongside a number of his sculptures as part of the New Talent series, one man exhibitions that the museum had been offering since 1950 to artists who had not yet had solo exhibitions in New York. Voulkos used this opportunity to illustrate the connection between painting, the classic example of fine-art, and ceramics. After his show at MoMA, the artist spent the summers of 1960-1962, and 1964 in New York teaching and creating work at the famed Greenwich House Pottery and Columbia University.
Peter Voulkos brought ceramics into the realm of fine art. He died in 2002, but his legacy is remembered in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Auction Results Peter Voulkos
