Some artists in Objects: USA pushed the frontiers of their mediums; others represented tradition. Another group seemed to stand at a crossroads, neither avant garde nor conservative, right at the convergence of their discipline’s multivalent energies. Robert Turner was that kind of artist. He worked at the epicenter of the pottery community, too, teaching at Black Mountain College from 1949 to 1951, and then for many years at Alfred University, which has been the nation’s most prominent institution for ceramics education since the early twentieth century.
His objects were supremely synthetic, combining insights from sculpture, from Japanese and African pots, even from architecture. They have the unplaceable, mysterious quality of the familiar, seen as if for the first time. This effect is produced above all by Turner’s surfaces, which he achieved through a combination of glazing and sandblasting, resulting in a mesmerizingly deep, matte skin, irresistible to the touch.