Carl Harry Stålhane; heavy, primitive, rugged and dramatic

Carl Harry Stålhane (1920 - 1990) is one of the most prominent figures in the  Swedish ceramics movement, and one of our favourites. In this post we want to give particular attention to the period in Stålhanes career that we belive is his best and the one that most clearly shows his artistic expression.

All items shown below are unique and made in the mid 1960s. In the spring of 1960 Carl-Harry Stålhane showed stoneware at Galleri Blanche in Stockholm, an exhibition that was a manifestation of the coming of a ceramic counter-movement. "Here are the ceramics of the 60’s :heavy, primitive, rugged, dramatic," said Ulf Hard af Segerstad (Svenska Dagbladet, 29.4.60) and described Stålhane's vessels as a declaration of love for the natural materials in the plastics age.

In the early 1960's Stålhane drove his art towards larger sizes and created rock walls in clay: Handelsbanken headoffice 1961, SAAB, Linköping, 1963, Commerce Tower in Kansas City in 1964, Volvo's headquarters in 1967 - a wonderful landscape of the iron road from the mine to the car. The Volvo wall is one of the largest ceramic works ever and maybe Stålhanes best effort at all. During this same period Stålhane's unique studio-ceramics evolved from slender and elegant pieces to the crude, dark drama with fallout of molten rock. The fine mist of the spray gun was replaced by a pouring of glaze, filling the cut surfaces of the vessels. 

By:Klassiskform

See all the Stålhane pieces and more ceramics here...