William Underhill

William Underhill (1933-2022) was one of the great talents and enigmas of the modern American studio craft movement. He became an acclaimed master of lost-wax casting, pursuing the sculptural potential of bronze vessels with unrivaled persistence and virtuosity. He "molded and scratched the wax until the final bronze surface embodied all of the mystical connotations of a ritualistic object," said Lee Nordness in his groundbreaking Objects USA (1969) survey of modern studio crafts. But Underhill then left the limelight and went on to ceaselessly explore both the power of beauty and form-making as a way to shape the spirit. Underhill studied with the legendary ceramic artist Peter Voulkos and worked with the celebrated architect Buckminster Fuller at the University of California at Berkeley, School of Architecture. From 1969 until 1997 he taught at Alfred University, New York.