WARREN MACKENZIE

Please join us this Saturday, February 15 from 3 - 5 pm for a reception to celebrate Warren's February 16th birthday!

Remarks at 4 pm

Warren MacKenzie (1923 –2018) entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago-in 1941 taking classes in drawing, painting, design and art history. From 1943 – 1945 he served in the US Army as a silk screen technician where he designed and printed training charts and maps. While stationed in Yokohama, he had a painting exhibition at the Nichida Gallery in Tokyo. On his return to the Art Institute of Chicago, he found all the painting classes were full, so he took ceramics, where he meets Alix Kolesky and discovers Bernard Leach’s A Potters Book. Warren marries Alex and they become potters.

While many of MacKenzie’s inspirations can be traced to England through his apprenticeship with Bernard Leach and to Japan through Shoji Hamada, a case can be made for him also representing what we refer to today as Mid-Century Modern. There is a connection between his paintings with flow and drips that he did at the AIC and the painting on some of his pots. In addition, there is correspondence between some of his forms that are neither from traditional British nor Japanese pottery designs. See the Black Vessel with and the Space Vessel, just two examples. The research on this is early, it is a subject worth pursuing.

Warren MacKenzie (1924 – 2018) made thousands of pots a year, working daily at his Stillwater, Minnesota studio up until his passing at the age of 94. Influenced by the Japanese Mingei folk craft movement, MacKenzie made pots for everyday use by ordinary people. His interest in functional pottery began when he and his first wife, Alix, made regular trips to the Field Museum and became captivated by the “pots that had been used in people’s lives and in their homes” (MPR News 2007).

My main interest is in the form, surface and gesture of making. I am working with some of the same elements that a painter or sculptor use but the results are completely different. A potter first attracts the eye through form, color, textures, gesture, and possibly decorative devices. Eventually, due to the nature of the work, such things as weight, balance, tactile reactions, and suitability to function begin to engage us. Out of a kiln load of hundreds of pots, only a few reach out to the user. Out of this small number, even fewer will continue to engage the senses after daily use. These seem to tap a source beyond the personal and deal with universal experience . . . Some pots just feel right, and a person who is open will know them. If given time to absorb the inner nature of the work and its maker, this person can share in the creative act that produced the piece.

- Warren MacKenzie

As Mid-Century Modern

February 15 - March 8, 2025

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