Raku Landscape Vessel II

Raku Landscape Vessel II
George Whitten
1949
Artist Biography
Acquisition Number: 83.5
Medium: Raku-fired clay
Size: 36" x 17" x 6"
Date: c. 1980's
Credit: Purchased in memory of Faye Wallace

Whitten pots were featured in several movies and television shows. An interior design showroom in Miami that handled his work had an arrangement with the Miami Vice television series. It was basically a rental agreement, with an understanding that if the piece was broken in a fight scene or machine gun episode, it was upgraded from rental to purchase. Whitten’s raku work exhibits a kind of radical originality, especially in the thrown pieces, decorating techniques and alterations. The large slab vessels however are another matter. They seem to be icons, effortlessly spanning the gap between postmodern Western art and a kind of Zen-like artifact from some distant past and time.