the emotional fervor of Abstract Expressionist painting. Some 20 works -- including five "Stacks" (4-foot-tall sculptures) as well as giant slashed-and-gouged plates and works on paper -- recently went on view at the Frank Lloyd Gallery. This non single show is his first at a Los Angeles gallery in 13 years, although a survey of his work was seen at the Newport Harbor Art Museum (presently carries a different name) in 1995. Voulkos, 75, has lived in Oakland since 1959, “having left after a fallout with the then-director of the Art Institute, Millard Sheets, who is best known for mosaic murals on local bank facades.” Although Voulkos has been absent from L.A. for 40 years, he remains something of an icon for artists here. Price, known for his candy-colored ovoid clay sculptures, puts it simply: "In one way or another, he influenced everyone who makes art out of clay, since he was the main force in liberating the material. He broke down all the rules -- form follows function, truth in materials -- because he wanted to make art that had something to do with his own time and place. He had virtuoso technique, so he was able to do it fairly directly, and he worked in a really forceful way. In the opinion of many artists he is the most important person in clay of the 20th century, not for what he did himself, but for the ground that he broke." In his interview with US art critics Voulkos said: “I never intended on being revolutionary, there was a certain energy around L.A. at that time, and I liked the whole milieu.” “Wielding clay is magic,” he says. “The minute you touch it, it moves, so you've got to move with it. It's like a ritual. I always work standing up, so I can move my body around. I don't sit and make dainty little things.” As a child, Voulkos did not imagine a future as an internationally influential artist. The third of five children born to Greek immigrant parents in Bozeman, Mon...
