Ken Price

American, 1935 - 2012

Location of BirthLos Angeles, California, United States of America, North America

BiographyKen Price was an American artist who created drawings, prints, and sculpture. He is best known for his abstracted, sensual sculptures made of fired clay. Typically, these forms are not glazed, but intricately painted with multiple layers of bright acrylic paint and then sanded down to reveal the colors beneath, adding multiple dimensions to otherwise smooth surface.
Price grew up in Los Angeles, studying at the University of Southern California and the Otis Art Institute with ceramic artist Peter Voulkos. He left Otis (and the influence of Voulkos) in 1958 to attend Alfred University, returning to Los Angeles in 1959 after completing his MFA in Ceramics. Price showed at Ferus gallery in Los Angeles with other notable west coast artists including Larry Bell. He soon became a fixture of the west coast art scene.
In 1970, Price and his family moved to Taos, New Mexico. During this time, Price made small-scaled works that subverted the functionality of traditional ceramics. In addition to these works, Price also produced drawings, paintings and prints that bore bold colors, graphic lines, and often brazen or absurd content.
From 1983-1991, Price and his family lived in coastal Massachusetts, after which Price returned to the western United States and split his time between Taos and Los Angeles, working as a professor and later professor emeritus at the University of Southern California. The sculptural work Price crafted during this period grew in scale and complexity, while his works on paper began depicting the endless desert expanse. In 2002, Price returned to Taos permanently, working out of the studio attached to his home until his death in 2012.

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