Label Text: Peter Voulkos used clay the same way action painters like Franz Kline used paint. And like the Franz Kline painting in this gallery, Yellow Stone Saga reveals evidence of the artist’s working process and the importance of spontaneity and improvisation in Voulkos’ art.
This large vessel-shaped sculpture is from a series the artist called “stacks.” The cracks, handprints, surface marks, and coloration created by the heat, ash, and high temperatures of a wood-fired kiln were unpredictable outcomes the artist embraced. When he used traditional pottery techniques to create sculpture, Peter Voulkos inspired a new ceramic movement in America.
