Rudy Autio

1926Born Butte, Montana

2007Died Missoula, Montana

EDUCATION

1950BS Art, Montana State College, Bozeman, Montana

1952MFA Sculpture, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington

APPRENTICESHIPS AND RESIDENCIES

1951Founding resident, The Archie Bray Ceramics Foundation, Helena, Montana

1952-1957Resident Artist, The Archie Bray Ceramics Foundation

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1957Assistant Curator, Montana Museum, Helena, Montana

1981National Endowment for the Arts Grant

1957-1985Founder, Ceramics Department, University of Montana, Missoula

BIOGRAPHY 

Rudy Autio was a leader in the American Abstract Expressionist ceramic revolution, his spontaneous large scale ceramic sculptures of hand-built closed vessels were often in the form of abstracted human torsos. These spontaneous abstract sculptural forms are incised with line drawings depicting animals and the human form. He taught himself painting and covered his sculptures with colorfully glazed graphic animals and painted human figures. Autio was influenced by designer Isamu Noguchi and artists Henry Moore and Henri Matisse. 

In 1981 he traveled to Finland to work at the Arabia Porcelain Factory on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. While working with the porcelain clays and colored slips, Autio found a new color palette previously unknown to him. In addition to his sculptures, he created relief and tile murals, worked in bronze, glass and textiles (designing tapestry). He is credited with moving ceramic sculpture into the realm of fine art.

An  interview with Rudy Autio conducted October 10 and 12, 1983 by LaMar Harrington, for the Archives of American Art's Northwest Oral History Project, is available at:
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-rudy-autio-11713.