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| Passion Investments: Collectibles |
Bowling for Dollars
Marisa Bartolucci
09/01/2005
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Rooted
in
Modernism
Ironically, James Prestini, the
turner
credited with elevating the
wooden vessel to an art
form, is said to
have abandoned the craft in the early
1950s
because he failed to make
any money with his work. Prestini studied
design
under László
Moholy-Nagy, one of the founders of the
Bauhaus. Prestini made the
Bauhaus ethos—to dissolve the
boundaries between the applied and fine
arts—his
own in his
turnings of vessels and platters. New York’s Museum
of Modern Art
included his creations in a major exhibition in
1949.
Turned wood’s other
early pioneers were Bob
Stocksdale,
Rude Osolnik, Melvin Lindquist and Ed
Moulthrop.
Although from
disparate backgrounds and working independently and
unknown to each
other in different regions of the country,
they crafted vessels
that
share an innate modernist aesthetic.
Their purist works, along with those
of Prestini, became the standard
to which future generations of turners
would
aspire—and rebel
against.
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MELVIN
LINDQUIST'S Flare Mouth Vase, 1999;
Mark Lindquist’s
Ascending Conical
Vessel, 1994; Bob
Stocksdale’s Untitled 1986; and
Mark Lindquist’s Ascending
Bowl 1998 #1. |
Stocksdale turned taut,
simple
forms to best
display the varied grains and tones of
the exotic woods
with which he loved to
work. He took
inspiration for his perfect
vessels from the elegant ceramic tea
bowls of China and Japan. Osolnik,
by contrast, was an
inventor, experimenting
with different techniques,
tools and
forms, as was Lindquist. Both men relished
the role of chance
in creation, and therefore preferred deformed, damaged and
castoff
pieces of wood, allowing these imperfections to
determine the shapes of
their vessels. If their objects approach the
sculptural in their
expressive use
of form, Moulthrop’s do so
on a grand scale—some of his
works are so large that
small
children can nestle inside them.
Moulthrop broke with wood-turning
tradition by chemically treating his
wood, so that the
thick-walled vessels
would not crack as they dried.
He then
coated the pieces with epoxy, bestowing a
gorgeous glasslike
sheen to their grained surfaces.
Prices for these
first-generation masters range dramatically—when you can find
them,
that is.
Most of Prestini’s works are in museum
collections. When a
rare piece comes on
the market, it can go
for anywhere from $3,000 to
$8,000. Del Mano Gallery has
acquired a small vessel by Stocksdale,
about 6 inches in
diameter, in macadamia,
a signature wood, pricing it
at
$3,000. Atlanta’s Signature gallery recently
sold a Moulthrop
tulipwood bowl, 10 inches in diameter, for $9,500. A superb
example of
his giant-sized vessels might fetch as much as
$50,000.
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