Skull Teapot, Variation #17

Richard Notkin

born 1948

Skull Teapot, Variation #17, 1991

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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Richard Notkin serves anti-war messages from his teapots, explaining “I use the teapot metaphorically…I’m more interested in conveying ideas than tea.” Notkin grew up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust and was a student at the Kansas City Art Institute during the Vietnam War. Steeped in those events, he creates teapots with haunting symbols that warn of the horrors of war: a mushroom cloud, skull, and teetering stacks of dice.

Intersections

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.