14 Facts About Karl Martz

Karl Martz was an American studio potter, ceramic artist, and teacher whose work achieved national and international recognition.

Karl Martz was born in Columbus, Ohio, USA to Velorus Martz, a high school principal and later professor of Education at Indiana University, and Amy Lee Kidwell Martz, in 1912.

In 1933, Karl Martz graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington, with a bachelor's degree in chemistry.

Karl Martz worked again at Griffith Pottery in the summer of 1933.

Karl Martz worked as an apprentice at Brown County Pottery for a year.

Around 1936, Karl Martz was discovered by his subsequent patron, Scott Murphy, an art collector who had a summer home in Nashville, Indiana.

Murphy funded Karl Martz to move his studio from its remote location in the woods to downtown Nashville, where many more tourists would encounter his work.

Karl Martz achieved national and international recognition over the next four decades, both as an educator and as a ceramic artist.

In 1952, Karl Martz participated in the seminal summer workshop at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, working with Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, Marguerite Wildenhain, Peter Voulkos, and Warren MacKenzie.

Craftsmanship in Clay is a series of six moving pictures featuring and scripted by Karl Martz and produced by the Indiana University Audio-Visual Center.

In 1965, Karl Martz was elected as the president of the Ceramics Education Council of the American Ceramic Society.

Martz and his wife continued to spend weekends and summers at the Nashville Martz Studio, making and selling pottery there, until 1961, when they sold it and moved to a modest home at 105 N Overhill Dr in Bloomington, Indiana, where their lives had become centered.

Karl Martz had an unassuming and modest demeanor, preferring to be called a potter.

Karl Martz played the piano, mostly boogie woogie, sometimes entertaining his children and nieces with musically-accompanied stories.