Howard Kottler

Howard Kottler (1930–1989) was a pivotal figure in 20th-century American ceramics. An innovator, he helped change the view of ceramics from a strictly utilitarian medium to a challenging and expressive artistic form.

Kottler originally trained as an optometrist and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in biological science from The Ohio State University, Columbus. He took a ceramics course in 1952 that shifted his focus. He went on to receive a Master of Arts degree in ceramics from The Ohio State University in 1956 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1957. A Fulbright Grant allowed him to continue his studies in Finland at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the famous Arabia Factory. Kottler returned to The Ohio State University and completed his PhD in 1964. The following year he joined the faculty at the University of Washington where he taught until his death in 1989.

Kottler’s works from the 1950s and early 1960s reflect the predominant art world interest in abstract expressionism. They were hand-formed, organic forms with rough surfaces that often showed the marks of the artist’s fingers and tools. At the Arabia Factory, Kottler became interested in the use of decal imagery on ceramics. He first applied them to commercially produced plates after a trip to San Francisco in the mid-1960s exposed him to the funk art movement. This series of work, including American Supperware, used appropriated images from popular culture to convey Kottler’s political, social, and personal messages. Based on these works, he developed a reputation for using coded images, wordplay, and biting humor—a trademark he continued to use when he began creating mixed media sculptural ceramics, and later, slip-cast assemblages. In these later series, Kottler’s art also often incorporated surrealist elements and conceptual art as well as further references to pop art.

In the course of his career, Kottler earned international critical acclaim. His works have been collected by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, and Whitney Museum of American Art; the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; and Seattle Art Museum, Portland Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, and Tacoma Art Museum in the Pacific Northwest. Kottler had two one-person exhibitions at Tacoma Art Museum: the first in 1979 and the second, Look Alikes: The Decal Plates of Howard Kottler, which began its national tour here in 2004.