Skull Teapot, Variation #17, Richard Notkin

Artwork Overview

Richard Notkin, Skull Teapot, Variation #17
Richard Notkin, Skull Teapot, Variation #17
Richard Notkin
Skull Teapot, Variation #17
1991
Richard Notkin
born 1948
Skull Teapot, Variation #17, 1991
Portfolio/Series title: Yixing series
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: stoneware
Dimensions:
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 18.5 x 12 x 7.5 cm
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 7 5/16 x 4 3/4 x 2 15/16 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund
Accession number: 1993.0033
On display: Stewart Gallery
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Archive Label 2001: This unglazed stoneware teapot updates a venerated tradition of tea-brewing wares. Made by contemporary ceramicist and Kansas City Art Institute graduate Richard Notkin, it combines 500-year-old Chinese Yixing pottery techniques with a powerful anti-war message. The lid handle is a mushroom cloud, and the dice suggest the chance of nuclear war.

Resources

Video

Listen to Richard Notkin speak about his art as political protest.

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 264 Dec-2008, revised Jun-2012, Ellen Raimond (revision of Episode 171) I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. Contemporary American ceramist Richard Notkin, creates teapots inspired by the 500-year-old tradition of Chinese Yixing [pronounced “ee-shing”] pottery. But he takes our positive associations with drinking tea-calming, soothing, and relaxing-and unceremoniously pours them out. Notkin’s 1991, Skull Teapot, Variation #17 is built from a seeming mishmash of objects rendered with consummate craftsmanship in clay: a squat grinning death’s head for its body; stacked dice for its handle; and a lightning bolt for its spout. The teapot’s lid takes the form of the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb blast. Skull, dice, and mushroom cloud serve over and over as grim features of the teapots that Notkin calls a “plea for sanity”. Intentionally political, Notkin's works serve as powerful reminders of our precarious position in today’s volatile world. Skull Teapot, Variation #17, is currently on view alongside traditional Asian ceramics in the Asia gallery. With thanks to Ellen Raimond for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.