Peter voulkos family

Artist

born Bozeman, MT 1924-died Bowling Green, OH 2002

Biography

After serving in the U.S. Army Air Force from 1943 to 1946, he entered Montana State College, earning a B.S. degree in 1951 and, the following year, an M.F.A. degree at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Returning to Montana in 1952, he established a pottery workshop in Helena. In 1953 while teaching a three-week summer course at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Voulkos met innovative figures in the arts such as Josef Albers, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Cage, which significantly influenced the direction of his work.

In 1954 Voulkos became chairman of the new ceramics department at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. His pottery shop soon became the mecca for artists in the area, launching the Los Angeles clay movement, with Voulkos as its leader. Despite the accolades for his

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Peter Voulkos (1924-2002)

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Untitled, 1955-56
glazed ceramic
31 1/2" x 19 1/2" x 19 1/2", signed
 

“I brush color on to violate the form, and it comes out a complete new thing, which involves a painting concept on a three-dimensional surface, a new idea.  These things are exploding, jumping off.  I wanted to pick up on that energy.  That’s different from decorating the surface, which enhances form….I wanted to change the form, get more excitement going.” *

Born in Bozeman, Montana in 1924, Peter Voulkos was one of five children in his close-knit family. His parents were Greek immigrants, and during the Depression, Voulkos held several jobs in order to help the family survive. In 1942, Voulkos finished high school and made his way to Oregon, where he found work making floor molds for engine castings and casting iron fittings for American Liberty ships. In 1943, he was drafted into the US Army Air Corps and spent most of the war in the Pacific theater. With funding f

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Born in 1924 to Greek immigrant parents in the town of Bozeman, Montana, Peter Voulkos is one of America’s most significant sculptors of the 20th century. Voulkos got his start in art in the late 1940s, when he was studying at Montana State College, Bozeman on the G.I. Bill, after being drafted and serving as an airplane armorer-gunner in the Pacific in World War II. In classes with Frances Senska, he discovered ceramics, the medium that would characterize his career. After graduating from Montana State College, Bozeman in 1951, Voulkos moved west and earned his MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. Returning to Montana after graduation, Voulkos attracted attention “as a prodigious natural potter and a producer of elegantly thrown functional earthenware,” according to Roberta Smith for the New York Times. He also produced dinnerware to sell through high-quality stores, and was noted for his wax-resist method of decoration.Voulkos gained a reputation as a master of ceramics techniques, winning twenty-nine prizes and awards from 1949 throu Copyright ©vanflat.pages.dev 2025