Artwork Information

  • Title:

    Bowl

  • Artist:

    Autio, Rudy

  • Artist Bio:

    American, 1926–2007

  • Date:

    1956

  • Medium:

    Stoneware

  • Dimensions:

    1 5/8 x 6 1/2 inches

  • Credit Line:

    Wichita Art Museum, Paul Edwards Pottery Collection

  • Object Number:

    1963.27

  • Display:

    Not Currently on Display


About the Artwork

Rudy Autio was a prominent modern American ceramicist. He was born in Montana to Finnish immigrants and worked in Montana on and off throughout much of his life including founding and heading the ceramics program at the University of Montana in Missoula for nearly three decades. Autio frequently decorated his early pottery pieces with incised abstract patterns during the 1950s and 60s. His later vessels were often very large, some up to four feet high, and hand built from clay. These later works were abstract in form with amorphous shapes, and his style of exterior decoration had shifted to painting human figures on the surface of his pieces. Autio was one of the great American Modern ceramists and his career was marked not only by his strong and evolving ceramics work, but also by his commitment to being a great educator.