Spurey, Kurt

First name: 
Kurt
Initials: 
K.
Surname: 
Spurey
Year of birth: 
1941
Birthplace: 
Mariazell - Austria
Working period: 
1968
CV: 

Kurt Spurey is born in Mariazell in Austria in 1941. Between 1961 and 1968 he studied silicate technology at the Höhere Technischen Bundes- Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt des Technologisches Gewerbemuseums in Vienna. Between 1965 and 1968 he worked at the studio run jointly by Gerda Gruber and Iris Brendel in Juchgasse, Vienna, taught himself ceramics. From 1968 own workshop, until 1975 jointly with his wife Gerda Gruber (Spurey) in Schüttelstrasse, Vienna. Between 1968 and 1971 head of the design studio he set up for Österreichische Sanitär-Keramik und Porzellan-Industrie AG in Wilhelmsburg, he designed for their "Lilienporzellan" brand, editions and serial objects. Between 1973 and 1975 lecturing in the US and Canada, also teaching assignments in Israel and Canada, in 1981 in Australia and the Netherlands, in 1983/84 in Norway, in 1988/89 in Germany. In 1988/89 artist in residence at Herend Porcelán Manufaktúra in Hungary, 1991 and 2003 at the Augarten Porcelain Factory in Vienna, in 1996 in Kraków, 2004 in Rome.

Pictures: Kurt Spurey, portrait around 2018 (source Salzburg News); Kurt Spurey, in his workshop (source lilienporzellan); porcelain vase on small foot (source EBTH.com); porcelain object (source Auctionet); open porcelain objekt (source Auktionshaus Schops Krefeld 2018).

Work of the artist: 

Glazed and unglazed porcelain vessels and objects; cast vase objects and press-moulded, modelled bowl objects and sculpture, later also cut from blocks of porcelain; from the late 1980s abstract concretism-sculpture in concrete and terracotta, then also steel and alumimium, some of it on a large scale and set up outdoors; from 1992 in parallel concrete geometric painting; from 2003 again porcelain vessels, since 2009 stoneware and raku vessels inspired by Japanese tea-bowls (text from Thormann, Olaf, Gefäss / Skulpture 3, 2018).