Otto Natzler, a master glazer and wizard of the kiln who with his wife, Gertrud, created some of the most admired ceramic objects of the 20th century, has died. He was 99.
Natzler, who was vital and active into his 90s through a regimen of yoga and physical exercise, died of cancer April 7 at his Los Angeles home, his art dealer, Darrel Couturier, said Tuesday.
The Natzlers' elegant and daring works -- she was the potter -- helped elevate ceramics from a "decorative art" to a fine art. Their works were featured in innumerable gallery shows over seven decades and are housed in dozens of museum collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New York's Metropolitan and Modern Art museums, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Natzler himself developed more than 1,000 different glazes for pottery. "Many were shimmering glazes that gave a glossy, silken look," Catherine Benkaim, a collector who owns a number of pieces by Natzler, told The Times.
Undaunted by the fragility of his wife's exquisite simple vessels, Natzler invented ever bolder glazes to enhance them.
Kenneth Donahue, former director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, wrote of the Natzlers that their works "seemed to have been born and to have grown as if they were natural things." Gertrud, he said, was like "a musical virtuoso who lets the form flow intuitively from her fingers," while Otto complemented them with glazes "as fine as insect wings and rough as cratered lava."
Lisa Hammel, writing in the New York Times in 1986, said the couple's work "seems always in equilibrium."
"Even the most violent glazes are held in a state of restraint by Gertrud's thin, gently curving shapes," Hammel said. "Deep, crusty pocking, for example, forms the surface of a slender slice of bowl."
The death of Gertrud in 1971 of cancer ended the Natzlers' unique artistic partnership, although she left behind about 200 pots for Otto to glaze. He did so one by one over many years, carefully matching the glaze to the pot as he had done throughout their 37-year relationship.
Eventually, Natzler moved on to his own works, including menorahs and slab sculptures, which brought him new admirers.
Sarah Booth Conroy, writing in the Washington Post in 1981, said the glazes on these very different Natzler pieces provide the link with the earlier work done by the couple.
