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Don Reitz

American
(1929–2014)

Untitled
2004

Stoneware
30.5 x 21 x 21 in.
Gift of the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation
1997.15

Don Reitz is well known for his wood-fire techniques and experimentation, including salt firing, well established in Europe, which he helped to popularize in the United States. Salt, introduced to the kiln during the firing process, produces a chemical reaction that affects the ceramic surface. This large sculptural piece, probably from 1997, is a wood-fired stoneware vessel that has been thrown on the wheel and then altered with some additions. Its gray color derives from the juniper wood used in the firing. The vibrant swirls of clay, winding around the cylindrical body, create a kinetic effect.

Born in 1929 in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, Reitz changed jobs several times before attending Kutztown State Teacher’s College, where he studied painting and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1957. After teaching in public schools, he enrolled in the ceramics program at Alfred University and obtained his MFA in 1962. Soon afterward, he went to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and he taught there for more than twenty-five years. Reitz has always also worked as a potter in his Arizona studio. In 2002 he received the American Craft Council’s Gold Medal. Reitz died in 2014 at the age of eighty-four, after a long life of experimentation and intense ceramic activity.

Sara Eco Conti, PhD.

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brown, gray

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Thumbnail image of Unearthed | The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It
Unearthed | The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It
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Ceramics
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Unearthed | 1990s and Beyond

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