Peter Voulkos (1924-2002) Smithsonian American Art Museum April 6th Washington DC

You are invited to a press preview for the exhibition:        Peter Voulkos (1924-2002) was one of the most influential ceramicists of the 20th century, celebrated for a radical approach that fundamentally transformed the field in a single decade. He defied mid-century craft dictums to reinvent his medium, combining wheel throwing with slab-building, traditional glazes with epoxy paint, figuration with abstraction and building large-scale ceramic structures with complex internal engineering.   "Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years" is the first exhibition to examine his early career from 1953 to 1968, when he developed his avant-garde forms and techniques. The exhibition will feature 31 examples from this crucial body of early work, most of which have not been exhibited on the east coast for four decades. Also included will be three of the artist's rarely seen works in oil on canvas, which help to demonstrate how Voulkos developed his ideas concurrently in pottery, painting and sculpture.   Thursday, April 6, 2017 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.    Sign-in: 10 a.m. Curator-led tour, 10:30 a.m. -Robyn Kennedy, chief administrator, Renwick Gallery  -Glenn Adamson, guest curator and senior scholar at the Yale Center for British Art -Andrew Perchuck, guest curator and deputy director of the Getty Research Institute  Renwick Gallery Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W.  #fineartmagazine