Richard Notkin

American, b. 1948

Cooling Towers Teapot (variation #8)
1984

Stoneware
6.5 x 9 x 4 in.
Museum Purchase with the Charter Member Endowment Fund
1985.249

Richard Notkin’s Cooling Towers Teapot (Variation #8) combines the fifteenth-century form of Chinese Yixing teapots with contemporary social commentary, addressing issues such as the futility of nuclear war and the spiritual danger of weapons of mass destruction. Notkin deliberately kept his work formally simple to stress what he saw as the moral lessons crucial to the survival of humanity.

Richard Notkin was born in Chicago and received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1970. He completed his MFA at the University of California, Davis, in 1973, working with Robert Arneson and Ken Ferguson just as UC Davis was emerging as an important center for ceramic sculpture (influenced by Pop art and Funk) in Northern California.


Matthew Limb

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This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: An Influence on Contemporary Art , 6/14/2011 - 7/26/2012
• Kendra Bogert's Ceramic Exhibit: Toilets, Fine Art, and Kitsch , 11/7/2013 - 5/5/2014
• Champ Hall Ceramics , 2/7/2017 - 1/28/2022
• Form vs. Function: Teapots from the NEHMA Collection , 2/9/2017 - 12/14/2018
• Unearthed , 8/23/2022 - 5/14/2023

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