Axel Salto

Antik, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2003

Axel Salto, Den Spirende Stil, Copenhagen, 1949, p. 99 (for a related example)

Pierre Lübecker, Salto, Copenhagen, 1952, n.p (for a related example)

Susanne Bruhn and Christina Rauh Oxbøll, eds., Axel Salto: Master of Stoneware, exh. cat., CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark, Middelfart, 2017, no. 274

Salto was deeply interested in the work of Jadadish Chandra Bose, an Indian scientist who studied hidden electrical pathways in plants. “My ornaments entitled the Living Stone I owe to him,” he wrote. In fact, he went one step further than Bose had; Salto sought to depict the hidden energies of geological, as well as biological, forms. This tile panel is a fully realized expression of this vocabulary. It was made in one piece – a picture in carved clay – then sliced into tiles which are individually hollowed in the back, for ease of firing and subsequent mounting. The complex composition is a veritable catalogue of Salto’s favorite motifs, including the close-set nubs of his “budding style,” flowing rivers and upright sheafs like those seen in his woodcuts, and the fecund, leaflike Living Stone emblem itself.

Glenn Adamson