VIOLA FREY
August 15, 1933 – July 26, 2004
By Sarah Katz
Viola Frey with monumental figures and paintings in her studio, Oakland, CA, 1987. Image courtesy of M. Lee Fatherree; artworks by Viola Frey © Artists’ Legacy Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
I met Viola Frey when I went to California College of the Arts and Crafts. She blew my mind. I had had two years of study in ceramics at The School for American Craftsmen at RIT under Franz Wildenheim, a Bauhaus potter, so I had learned a very European tradition. I had begun to make pots without holes, which caused a a philosophical crisis in me and I thought if I was making sculpture, and not pots, I should change my major and study sculpture. So, I did. The forms that I was making weren’t really that much different than my pots, but then I saw Viola’s work, and everything I thought I knew flew off the table. She was making these big, round forms with objects and shapes hanging off them, fighting for space, writhing and shouting about the past, the present, and the future. It was very disturbing and wonderful and a bit scary!
