Karl Martz (June 24, 1912 – May 27, 1997) was an American studio potter, ceramic artist, and teacher whose work achieved national and international recognition. Bowie, Theodore , Karl Martz, pages 3-5 in Karl Martz, potter, Retrospective, Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana. 1977. Privately published. 100 pages including index. Pages 47-83 cover Karl Martz and Becky Brown. 20 color photographs of works by Karl Martz, several portrait photos, and similar coverage of Becky Brown. 2010 eBook available from Indiana University Press . Breaking New Ground. The Studio Potter + Black Mountain College. Exhibition Catalog, 2007. Commemorates the 1952 and 1953 summer pottery symposia attended by Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, Marguerite Wildenhain, Peter Voulkos, Warren MacKenzie and Karl Martz, among others. Black Mountain Museum and Arts Center, Asheville, North Carolina, USA.
Page 33 reproduces Pyle's description of Karl Martz, dated August 24, 1940. This is reproduced from Pyle's nationally syndicated newspaper column. Includes seven photos of pots by Karl (five in color), three color photos of works by Becky, and two black and white portraits. Karl Martz papers, 1949-1992. Includes biographical sketch. Indiana University Archives , Bloomington, Indiana. Accessed September 25, 2018. Coleman, Thomas F. Obituary: Karl Martz. Published (but not online) in the Bloomington Herald Times May 29, 1997; and in the Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University) June 2, 1997. Available online at MartzPots.Org. Thomas F. Coleman was Professor in the School of Fine Arts, Indiana University. Biography of Karl Martz:
Born Karl Martz was born in 1912 at Columbus, Ohio, USA to Velorus Martz , a high school principal and later Professor of Education at Indiana University, and Amy Lee Kidwell Martz
"While I was in high school [1925-29], the whole family took a motor trip through the West. The car got into the sand in New Mexico and ripped out its differential, and we were stuck waiting for its replacement. So we put up our tent and stayed a couple of weeks. I entertained myself in part by making little pots and firing them in a pit -- I'd read the Indians did this. I still have one of them."
Education Martz graduated from Indiana University in 1933 with a bachelor's degree in Chemistry. Karl Martz is listed under "Bloomington Graduates". Karl Martz is described under the subtitle "Another Pottery Studio", second column, bottom. Scott & Ellen Murphy's estate and garden are described starting at the bottom of the 5th column.
Career Beginnings Martz's first exposure to a professional ceramic art studio was in 1931 when he attended a summer course at Ohio State University. For the summer of 1932, Griffith Pottery in Nashville, Brown County, Indiana (a tourist destination and artist's colony) hired Martz to improve their glaze formulas. In 1933, Martz graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington, with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He worked again at Griffith Pottery in the summer of 1933. In 1933-34, Martz returned to Ohio State University to do graduate work in ceramic art with Arthur E. Baggs, Carlton Atherton, and Edgar Littlefield. He worked as an apprentice at Brown County Pottery for a year. In 1935, he began a series of rustic studios in the woods near Nashville, Indiana.
Pre-War Studio Around 1936, Martz was discovered by his subsequent patron, Scott Murphy,
Scott and Ellen Murphy were famous for their Sunday breakfasts. This one was attended by Mr. & Mrs. Karl Martz and Grace Wilkes, an art collector who rented the Pink House to the Martzes. an art collector who had a summer home in Nashville, Indiana. Murphy funded Martz to move his studio from its remote location in the woods to downtown Nashville, where many more tourists would encounter his work. Murphy also funded a new showroom.
During the period from 1935 to 1942, Martz was enormously productive, making colorful earthenware. Looking back decades later, Martz's wife Becky called this period "the golden years".
In 1936 and 1937, his work was exhibited in the National Ceramic Exhibition in Syracuse, New York, and included in the exhibit circuit. This was the first of widespread recognition he achieved during the remainder of his life. Nationally syndicated journalist, Ernie Pyle, described Martz in 1940 as follows:
Karl Martz is reticent, low-spoken, gratefully polite. He does not speak in arty terms. ... The parlor of his home is the exhibition room. In it today stand the most beautiful pieces of pottery I have ever seen. Each piece is an individual thing, almost with a soul. He never makes a duplicate of anything. ... The ingenuity and artistry that he fashions into his clay are actually touching.
Pyle, Ernie, Traveling (a nationally syndicated column): Page 17, August 29, 1940. This clipping believed to be from The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Wartime By 1942, tourist traffic in Brown County, Indiana, had largely ceased due to World War II gas rationing. For the remainder of the war, Martz did research in ceramics at Carnegie-Illinois Steel Company and Armour Research Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. In 1944, he taught ceramic art part-time at the Chicago Institute of Design directed by László Moholy-Nagy, and at Hull House.
Indiana University In the spring of 1945, Martz was hired by Henry Radford Hope. Hope chaired the Fine Arts Department (later the School of Fine Arts) at Indiana University from 1941 to 1968. Martz began as an instructor of ceramic art. Ceramic equipment was difficult to obtain after the war, so the university bought all the equipment and supplies from Martz's earlier private studio.
Martz achieved national and international recognition over the next four decades, both as an educator and as a ceramic artist. In the 1950s, he began doing sculptural work in stoneware and later, Asian-inspired porcelain, as well as continuing functional and sculptural earthenware. In the fall of 1952, Martz participated in the seminal pottery workshop at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, working with Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, and Marguerite Wildenhain among others.
Includes photograph of the 1952 pottery seminar participants showing Karl Martz sitting next to Shoji Hamada.
In 1957, Martz and Harvey Littleton spent ten days at the historic Jugtown Pottery near Seagrove, North Carolina, where they learned traditional salt-glazed stoneware techniques. In 1965, he was elected President of the Design Section of the Ceramics Education Council of the American Ceramic Society (ACS).Brisson, Harriet E. NCECA, The First 25 Years, 1966-1991. Scholes Library, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Online at NCECA.net .
In 1966, he was a leader in the separation of that group from the ACS and the founding of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA).
In 1992, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Craft Council.
Sabbaticals in Japan In fall 1963, Martz did a sabbatical semester in Japan studying mingei methods and visiting many potteries.
He worked in Kyoto in the studio of his host, Yuzo Kondo (1902-1985), recognized in 1977 by the Japanese Government as a Living National Treasure.
During this sabbatical, he crafted white porcelain pieces with blue decorations in the style of Kondo-sensei.
In 1971-2, Martz did a second sabbatical in Japan, this time headquartered in the studio of his host Hiroshi Seto (1941-1994)
in the town of Mashiko, famed for its traditional family potteries. Martz was particularly inspired by the work of Mashiko potter Totaro Sakuma (1900-1976) . While in Mashiko, Martz crafted several pieces in the style of Sakuma-sensei.
Films Craftsmanship in Clay is a series of six moving pictures (originally 16 mm films, now available in digital format) featuring and scripted by Martz and produced by the (then) Indiana University Audio-Visual Center. The films were produced between 1948 - 1954. Simple slab methods (1948, 11 min) Glaze application (1949, 11 min) Stacking and firing (1950, 11 min) Throwing (1950, 11 min) Decoration (1952, 11 min) Simple molds (1954, 11 min)
In 1975, he appeared in a 25 min film titled Possibilities in Clay, which also featured Thomas Marsh, Ginny Marsh, Kathy Salchow, and John Goodheart.
Recognition +AwardsYearAwardsAwarded ByRef1989Distinguished HoosierRobert D. Orr, Indiana Governor In 1965, Martz was elected as the president of the Ceramics Education Council of the American Ceramic Society (ACS). As the president, he was a leader in the separation of that group from the ACS and the founding of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in 1966.
In 1974, Martz was appointed the Bingham Professor of the Humanities at the University of Louisville, Kentucky.
In 1977, there was a major retrospective exhibit at the Indiana University Art Museum on the occasion of Martz's retirement.
Announcement of the opening of Karl's retrospective show at the Indiana University Art Museum. In 1992, he was inducted as a fellow of the American Craft Council.
Posthumous Recognition
In 2009, Kathy M. McKimmie wrote Clay Times Three which includes 38 pages illustrated in color about the lives and ceramics of Karl Martz and his wife Becky Brown Martz. In 2019, the Haan Museum of Indiana Art
mounted the exhibition Karl Martz and the Legacy of Indiana Ceramics.
This web page shows photographs of works in the exhibit and of people attending.
Works in Museums
Examples of his work are (or were) in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC
, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo , the Museum of Decorative Arts in Lisbon, the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York The Museum of Contemporary Crafts (now the Museum of Arts and Design) de-accessioned this work in 2007 or 2009 according to a 2018 inquiry and replies by curatorial staff Angelik Vizcarrondo and Samantha de Tillio. , the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis , the IBM Corporation, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse New York , the Minnesota Museum of Art in St. Paul, the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska ,In September, 2025, at the Collections page, a search for "Martz" finds 7 ceramic works by Karl Martz. and several museums in Indiana including the Midwest Museum of American Art ,The Midwest Museum of American Art (Elkhart, Indiana) has more than a dozen pieces by Martz, donated by Doug and Barbara Grant. In 2008, these were on display along with works by many other mid-twentieth century studio potters, in a room devoted largely to works of the Overbeck Sisters. the Haan Museum of Indiana Art
, the Indiana University (now Eskenazi) Art Museum , This museum has more than thirty pieces by Martz. and the Indianapolis Museum of Art .
Personal life In 1935, he married Margaret Rebekah "Becky" Brown . Initially, they lived in a small cabin on a hill just south of Nashville, Indiana, where Martz built his first kiln:
"I built a kiln out in the woods. Didn't know a thing about building kilns, of course. I got a big 20 gallon stoneware crock, knocked the bottom out to get a draft, and put a pan underneath to drip oil into so the flame would come up through. Can you believe this? It smoked terribly -- great clouds -- and the neighbors thought we were running a moonshine still. But I could get copper reds on the bottom and chrome reds on top, all in the same firing. Pretty soon I talked my dad into financing a real kiln."
Soon they rented a cabin in the woods, North of Nashville, Indiana. They had two sons, Eric in 1940, and Brian in 1942. Becky learned ceramics from her husband, initially making small items to sell to tourists. Later, Becky developed her own style, making charming and whimsical animal sculptures, and earning a regional reputation
.
Martz designed a home and studio on the outskirts of Nashville, Indiana, the "Martz Studio", .