Teardrop Bottle

Gertrud NatzlerWW-1963-123351

1963·Earthenware and glaze·25.1 × 11.1 × 10.8 cm (9 7/8 × 4 3/8 × 4 1/4 in.)

<p>Gertrud and Otto Natzler’s artistic relationship was highly collaborative: Gertrud created the forms of their earthenware pieces, while Otto formulated and applied the dramatic glazes. The couple’s dignified <em>Teardrop Bottle</em> epitomizes the harmonious synthesis between form and glaze that the Natzlers so often achieved. The brown, smoky gray, and mottled yellow tigereye glaze fuses with the graceful form of the body, which Otto described as “ascend[ing] slowly upward with a slight curve, as if turning onto itself, only to change direction faintly just before ending.”</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1963
Medium: Earthenware and glaze
Dimensions: 25.1 × 11.1 × 10.8 cm (9 7/8 × 4 3/8 × 4 1/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Gertrud Natzler

Artist

Gertrud Natzler

Ceramics

Gertrud Natzler was an American ceramicist known for glazed earthenware vessels of austere formal refinement. Working alongside her husband Otto from the 1930s onward, she developed a distinctive approach to clay form and surface that emphasized the inherent properties of glaze and material reduction. Her bowls and vessels, often finished in subtle matte surfaces, represent a modernist restraint that distinguished postwar American studio ceramics.

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