Artist

Otto Natzler

born Vienna, Austria 1908-died Los Angeles, CA 2007
Born
Vienna, Austria
Died
Los Angeles, California, United States
Biography

Born in Vienna, Austria, Gertrud Natzler graduated from the Vienna Handelsakademie in 1926 and later took classes in drawing, painting, and ceramics. Also born in Vienna, Otto Natzler graduated from the Bundeslehranstalt fur Textile-Industrie in 1927 and worked as a textile designer. Both of them studied ceramics with Franz Iskra in Vienna in 1934 before organizing their own workshop in 1935. Married in 1938, the Natzlers fled Nazi-occupied Austria and immigrated to the United States, where they settled in Los Angeles.

During their thirty-six years of collaboration Gertrud threw the clay and formed it into simple pristine vessels, while her husband glazed and fired the vessels. Their objects are distinguished by the varied glazes on the surface, each glaze tested carefully by Otto and applied with consideration of the clay form with which it is paired.

Kenneth R. Trapp and Howard Risatti Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998)

Works by this artist (1036 items)

William H. Johnson, Young Pastry Cook, ca. 1928-1930, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.693
Young Pastry Cook
Dateca. 1928-1930
oil on canvas
On view
William H. Johnson, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1935-1938, oil on burlap, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.814
Portrait of a Man
Dateca. 1935-1938
oil on burlap
On view
William H. Johnson, Breakdown with Flat Tire, ca. 1940-1941, oil on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.587
Breakdown with Flat Tire
Dateca. 1940-1941
oil on plywood
On view
William H. Johnson, For India and China, ca. 1944-1945, oil on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.662
For India and China
Dateca. 1944-1945
oil on paperboard
On view

Exhibitions

Media - 2016.11 - SAAM-2016.11_6 - 124929
Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery
November 13, 2015March 6, 2022
Connections is the Renwick Gallery’s dynamic ongoing permanent collection presentation, featuring more than 80 objects celebrating craft as a discipline and an approach to living differently in the modern world.