Paul Soldner Bottles
After studying under Peter Voulkos at the Los Angeles County Art Institute, Denver native Paul Soldner (1921–2011) became a pottery professor there in the 1960s, when the revolutionary California Clay Movement took root.
Soldner pioneered American-style raku firing methods, experimental updates of the centuries-old Japanese process, which involve pulling red-hot sculptures out of the kiln to be bathed in smoke or dipped in cold water, resulting in beautifully frazzled glazes.
“These new firing and post-firing reduction methods often led to spontaneous, unpredictable and quite wonderful results,” says Greg Nielson, of Dwell Floor Five, in Studio City, California.
Soldner’s raku vases, for instance, with their charred surfaces, seem to smile humbly through the scars of their past adversity.
Alongside the likes of Toshiko Takaezu, Soldner innovated chunky, funky ceramics in the mid-century and beyond. He is one Voulkos student at whom enthusiasts should take a serious look, advises dealer Jayson Lawfer.
The owner of The Nevica Project, a gallery with venues in Chicago and Kansas City, Lawfer explains that Soldner “was a master of raku and was credited with bringing the historic Asian technique to the U.S.” He adds that “Soldner used simple techniques of throwing pottery on the wheel, but to make his sculptural forms more interesting, he also pressed burlap into the clay and stepped on it to give it different textures."
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1980s American Brutalist Vintage Paul Soldner Bottles
Ceramic
1980s American American Craftsman Vintage Paul Soldner Bottles
Ceramic
1960s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Paul Soldner Bottles
Stoneware
2010s Organic Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Ceramic
21st Century and Contemporary Malaysian Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Copper
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Pottery
1970s American Brutalist Vintage Paul Soldner Bottles
Stoneware
1980s American Post-Modern Vintage Paul Soldner Bottles
Ceramic
Mid-19th Century Swedish Scandinavian Modern Antique Paul Soldner Bottles
Stoneware
2010s Organic Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Ceramic
Late 20th Century Unknown Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Clay
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Ceramic
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Pottery
20th Century German Mid-Century Modern Paul Soldner Bottles
Ceramic
1970s American Organic Modern Vintage Paul Soldner Bottles
Clay