Plate

Both Takaezu and Voulkos sought to establish a dialogue between ceramics and abstract painting. However, they produced drastically different bodies of work: Voulkos subjected his works to violent gestures, rapidly cutting incisions into his plate. He would also drop wet wheel-thrown vessels on the ground and shape them with his hands before cutting into them with wooden tools. By contrast, Takaezu preserved the integrity of her organic forms—the unbroken disk of Pink and Black on White uses brushstrokes to emphasize the plate’s circular form. The two artists’ long-term mutual admiration is evidenced by Takaezu’s ownership of the Voulkos plate on the right—made using a wood-fired kiln—which she donated to Princeton alongside her own plate. The Volkous plate on the left was originally a gift from the artist to Takaezu.