The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 151

Notkin, Richard
American (b. 1948, Chicago, IL; lives in Helena, MT)
1973 MFA University of California, Davis, CA
1970 BFA Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO

Richard Notkin is best known for his Yixing-inspired teapots that reinterpret the

SELECTED REFERENCES:

traditional Chinese redware form. He questions nuclear-energy programs and American

Cooper, Emmanuel. Ten

foreign policy decisions by modelling delicate skulls, dice, and tiny nuclear explosions

Thousand Years of Pottery.

onto his ceramic pieces. Notkin grew up in Chicago where his father worked as an
immigration lawyer representing Chinese clients. Notkin’s father routinely received
gifts of scrolls, carvings, and ceramics, which were displayed in the family home.
The Yixing-inspired teapots and Notkin’s ceramic sculptures have been exhibited
internationally and are in numerous collections including the Metropolitan Museum of

Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
“Distinguished Craft Artists:
Richard Notkin.” James Renwick
Alliance. Accessed March
25, 2014. http://www.jra.
org/resources/Notkin.htm

Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Victoria
and Albert Museum, and Japan’s Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park. Among his awards,

Perryman, Jane. Smoke Firing:
Contemporary Artists and

Notkin has received three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts

Approaches. London: A & C

(1979, 1981, 1988), as well as fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial

Black; Philadelphia: University

Foundation (1990), The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1991), and the Jerry Metcalf

of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

Foundation (1999, 2006). Notkin is a full-time studio artist who lives and works in
Helena, Montana, and has conducted over 250 workshops throughout the world.

RICHARD NOTKIN WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

Military Intelligence I,
from the series Yixing
Heart Teapot: Hostage III,
from the series Yixing
Nuclear Nuts Teapot,
from the series Yixing
Ellipsoidal Brain Teapot,
Nuclear Winter, from
the series Yixing

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