Decorative bowl, (untitled),

1949

Otto Natzler referred to his wife’s bowl with its graceful, floating look as Gertrude’s “most perfect form.” He furnished it with a surface of craters and shadows recalling a lunar landscape. After a chance encounter spurred an enduring fascination with the material of clay, the Vienna-born couple plunged into several years of experimental self-study, teaching themselves the skills necessary to produce exceptional pottery. “This period was painful, because the wonderful material proved extremely unruly and we only succeeded very slowly in mastering it,” Otto once said. Gertrud Natzler crafted the vessels without tools such as casting or pressing molds, using only her hands to give them their individual forms, while Otto Natzler demonstrated almost alchemical fervor as he became a master glazer capable of achieving the most delicate of effects. The decisive parameters were the precise control of firing temperatures, the speed at which they were reached, and the later cooling of the kiln. The couple already won a silver medal for their vessels at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. With the annexation of Austria by Germany, however, in 1938 Gertrud and Otto Natzler were forced to leave their home. They emigrated to the United States and settled outside of Los Angeles. The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich purchased a group of seven vessels by them on the occasion of the 1959 exhibition Keramik von Gertrud und Otto Natzler. (Sabine Flaschberger)