Today we share another new acquisition, part of an impressive private collection of art pottery recently purchased by LEO Design. Shown above, a piece of studio pottery crafted by German ceramicist Wendelin Stahl.
Stahl was born in 1922 to a family of ceramic masters including his father and older brother, Rudi Stahl. From 1938 to 1939, he served an apprenticeship at the ceramics workshop of Kunow & Drossé. After the war, he continued his education at his father’s studio, leaving in 1952 to open his own studio at Castle Coraidelstein (south of Cologne) with his wife, ceramicist Else Harney. Finally, in 1955, Stahl passed his master examination.
Stahl was a master of form and glazing, considered a lion amongst mid-century German ceramics students. He won the Westerwald Prize in 1977 and was inducted into the Academie Internationale de la Ceramique (in Geneva) the same year. Stahl died in 2000, sixteen years after his wife, Else. In 2013, he was honored with a major retrospective at the Russian Academy of Fine Arts Museum in Saint Petersburg.
The piece above was made by Stahl in his Castle-Workshop in the 1950’s or 1960’s. It is a fine example of strong form improved by impressive (and technically brilliant) decoration. Please click on the photo above to learn more about it.
Additional pieces from our newly-acquired collection tomorrow.