A tall, bottle-form, cuprous (copper-based) lusterware vase with an incredibly protean texture by contemporary New Jersey ceramic artist Richard Freiwald. The shimmering effects of lusterware are achieved with the application of small amounts of metallic oxides to glazed ceramics—and their re-firing in a reduction (low-oxygen) atmosphere. The second firing, at a temperature high enough to “soften” the under-glaze and break down the metallic compounds, leaves a very thin (perhaps 10- or 20-atoms-thick), largely metal, iridescent layer fused with the main glaze. Lusterware normally only uses a single color per piece, and the palette is restricted.

RICHARD FREIWALD (b. 1955) is a celebrated ceramicist and educator from Highland Park, N.J., noted for his refined craftsmanship and evocative designs. His work has been widely exhibited in New Jersey and New York and is held in numerous private and museum collections around the world. Freiwald has earned the particular esteem of collectors who appreciate objets d’art from the Art Nouveau and the American Arts and Crafts movements. His sometimes eccentric forms are made transcendent with the application of an astounding variety of experimental glazes.

Freidland received an M.F.A. from Mason Gross School of the Arts, the arts conservatory at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, N.J., in 1982. He began his teaching career in 1980, finally retiring in 2020 from the Pingry School, a prestigious prep school in Somerset County, N.J., after 32 years there.

Freiwald has been the recipient of many honors, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Council for Basic Education, as well as the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and has held three endowed teaching chairs over the years. Much of his work embraces a decided Jugendstil aesthetic, often accentuated and heightened by crossover sculptural themes rooted in nature, fantasy, and mythology.

Freiwald is as much a technician as he is an artist, and he revels in the practical challenges involved in the creation of his art: the glaze chemistry, the firing schedules, and the difficulty of many of his forms, both the hand-thrown and the sculpted.

I am compelled to do this! – RICHARD FREIWALD

DETAILS

Designer – RICHARD FREIWALD

Design Period/Year – 2010s

Maker – FREIWALD ART POTTERY

Production Period/Year – 2010s

Origin – USA

Styles/Movements – MODERN; MID-CENTURY MODERN; ORGANIC MODERN

Materials – CERAMIC

Colors – RUBY, OLIVE

Condition – Mint condition. No imperfections.

Dimensions – 5" Diam. × 19 ½" H