Rudolf Staffel

Rudolf Staffel is known for developing techniques for manipulating the light transmission qualities of porcelain using simple bowl, vase, and abstract forms, he called ?Light Gatherers?.

The pieces are thrown or slab built vessels that incorporate incised, pinched,inlaid, pierced, stamped, applied and slip decorated techniques. Generally unglazed he sometimes colored the porcelain body with green, blue-green or blue stains. Staffel?s work explored porcelain?s qualities of translucency and strength.

His early clay education was with artists and potters.In the 1920s Staffel met and studied painting in New York City with Hans Hoffman and Jose Arpa. Later he worked with potters, learning to throw on a potter?s wheel in Mexico. In 1931, he took a formal ceramics course at the Art Institute in Chicago with Louis Ripman and Laura Van Papelladam. He then worked as a production potter and learned pottery history and traditions from Paul Cox in New Orleans. Staffel began his career making wheel thrown functional stoneware pots.

In the 1950s Staffel had his first experience working with porcelain when commissioned to produce a dinner service. He worked and experimented with various procellaneous clay bodies for the rest of his career learning to alter the transmission of light through the thickness and texture of the vessel walls. These manipulations were integral to the vessel structure and not simple decoration. Staffel?s work is both container and sculpture with a painterly approach to the use of porcelain.