Detroit-native Steven Montgomery discusses the influence of damage, destruction, and the passage of time in his own works, and finds similar narratives in the works of Steven Young Lee and Peter Voulkos, and other artists in the collection.
Steven Young Lee blends Eastern and Western traditions with anachronistic, often playful imagery and striking pattern in his porcelain works. His process allows the clay forms to sink under their own weight in the kiln, creating dramatic “broken” silhouettes that can never be replicated. The resulting vessels embody equal parts mastery and chance, and reflect Lee’s own inquiries into the nature of perfection, the construction of identity and balancing tradition with personal expression.
A professor and ceramic sculptor, Japanese-American Akio Takamori has exhibited his work internationally for more than three decades. Most recently, Takamori's focus has been figurative sculpture, often autobiographical. Join the artist as he discusses his process and work as part of the James Renwick Alliance's Distinguished Lecture Series.
Conversations about Ceramics in the Freer Gallery of Art: In conjunction with the exhibition The Peacock Room in Blue-and-White, Jan Stuart, Stacey Pierson and Louise Cort discuss Chinese Cobalt-decorated Porcelain in Foreign Markets.
(Part 1) Exported to Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia – The Peacock Platter – Export/Exported Porcelain – Identifying Blue-and-White- Kendi
Taken by the transgressive nature of Steven Young Lee’s porcelain “Vase with Landscape and Dinosaurs," ceramic artist Wayne Highby appreciates that it challenges and questions the traditional vessel, porcelain history, and also traditional ceramic art.
Peter Voulkos at Archie Bray, 1955, from “Peter Voulkos Working,” produced by Susan Fanshel and Ann Voulkos, and distributed by Documentary Educational Resources.
Digital video, TRT 00:08:11
Photography by Maxime Blackmer
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Peter Voulkos making a sculpture, c. 1956, from "Revolutions of the Wheel, the Emergence of American Clay Art," produced by Queens Row.
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Chinese porcelain is a durable, beautiful, and historically significant example of ceramic art. It serves as an important industry in China and is greatly admired around the world. The basic recipe for producing porcelain consists of four steps: forming a piece, glazing, decorating, and firing. The firing takes place in a kiln at extremely high temperatures above 1,260 degrees Celsius (or 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit).
The finest porcelains are white and translucent thanks to the presence of kaolin—a soft, white clay that is bountiful around certain Chinese rivers. Artisans have mastered the right proportions of kaolin with other materials such as feldspar, ball clay, glass, or bone ash to achieve the effects of color and translucence. Artisans during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1050 BCE) made the first proto-porcelains. Improved techniques came during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE), and the white, translucent porcelain we know today came during the Tang dynasty (618–907). By the time of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), porcelain was being exported to Europe.
Learn more about Chinese porcelain:
Editing: Jackson Harvey
Research: Khamo Kyi
[Catalog No. CFV11257; © 2019 Smithsonian Institution]
