Two view of Larry Elsner’s “Opus,” Stoneware, 6 x 4 in.

“As a sculptor, my concern is for form,” Larry Elsner wrote in 1977, “a maddening search for the unity of space and mass.” An Idaho native and longtime Utah State University (USU) professor, Elsner would always choose form over function, regardless of the medium in which he was working: bronze, clay, metal, stone, plaster, or wood. Don’t miss the chance to see his work at Phillips Gallery, where it will be shown with ceramic work by Francesc Burgos, Heidi Moler Somsen and Connie Jo Erickson in the upstairs gallery and current USU faculty in the Dibble Gallery.

Born in Gooding, Idaho, Elsner grew up on a ranch in the southern part of the state. When he went to the University of Idaho on an athletic scholarship in 1948, he promptly registered for art classes. His studies were interrupted, though, by work and then service in the United States Navy (1953 to 1955), and he eventually transferred to Utah State University.

It was at USU in 1957 that Elsner met Yoko Yamakawa, a microbiologist from Tokyo who came to Logan to further her studies. It was not a whirlwind courtship. “I was not interested in marrying; I guess he was the same way,” she recalls. After receiving his B.S. at USU, the artist was awarded a scholarship to Columbia University under figurative sculptor Oronzio Maldarelli and earned his master’s there in 1958. The couple wed a year later.

While at Columbia Elsner researched Chinese art for a paper, which was the beginning, his wife says, of his study of Oriental culture, its religion and art. The couple went to Japan for a visit in 1969 and stayed for three months. At that time Elsner was making ceramic wheel-thrown pieces. When they took some of Elsner’s tea bowls to a friend for a gift, one of their acquaintances thought they were so good they introduced him to a gallery in Tokyo.  Elsner eventually would have four one-man invitational exhibits in Japan to critical approval. “What they liked about Larry’s work,” says Yoko, “was he left his pieces unglazed, showing the clay. His main concern was with form.”

Larry Elsner, “Equus #300,” ceramic, 18 x 17 x 6 in.

Elsner was a versatile artist. He studied metalsmithing under Richard Thomas at Michigan’s famed Cranbrook Academy; and at the Archie Bray Foundation he studied pottery under Ken Ferguson, and sculpture under Betty Feves and Richard Hunt. He spent his life creating sculpture and teaching — he was at Utah State University for 30 years. When his teaching day ended, he often worked in his studio/office on campus. Evenings and weekends he created in his home studio, housed in a separate building. At home he worked with wood or metal; at the university he worked in clay.

Elsner began showing at Salt Lake City’s Phillips Gallery in 1974. Bonnie Phillips recalled visiting Elsner’s Logan studio a couple of times and having dinner at the Elsners’ home with her husband and gallery partner Denis. “I just felt a confidence in Larry’s understanding of art, in what he created, and the gentle way in which he transmitted information about it, whether it was a conceptual principled idea he was looking for in the shape of a horse or an abstract shape and how he did it. So, he was well-spoken about the way he intended to create a piece, with the substance of the idea behind it and how he went about doing that. And I thought, ‘he’s just a good teacher in person and through his work.’”

His majestic, ceramic horses have always been prized by collectors. They have personality, style and undeniable charm. With an Asian influence, particularly in their minimal color, they continue to hold their interest. His feline creations are endearing. His intriguing modernist pots are consistently studies in form over function and a delight to behold as their shapes mimic intricately decorated Aladdin’s lamps; simple hand-built rounded vessels where the clay’s beauty shines through; tall, elegant pieces with quite simple but fascinating decoration. Phillips even has examples of his strictly abstract work, which shares with all of his work,  an interest in elegant form.

Elsner died suddenly on March 27, 1990, at the age of 59. At the time, more than 700 pieces were collected for a major retrospective at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum in Logan. Following his death, Elsner’s wife Yoko spent years cataloging his extensive collection and little of his work was seen publicly until Phillips Gallery staged a major show in 2015 (this article is adapted from one written at that time). Since then the gallery has exhibited Elsner’s work regularly, and you’ll find some prime examples of his elegantly crafted pieces in the gallery’s ceramics group show that opens for Gallery Stroll, Friday, March 21.

Go soon, unless you like a treasure hunt. Next week and only for next week, Phillips will host Interwoven Stories, a curated exhibit from the NCECA conference on their main floor. During that time, gallery director Meri DeCaria says, “We’ll be moving our regular artists wherever they fit throughout the rest of the building.”

Ceramics Group Show, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City, March 21-April 11. Gallery Stroll Reception: Friday, March 21, 6-9 pm.

Ann Poore

A graduate of the University of Utah, Ann Poore is a freelance writer and editor who spent most of her career at The Salt Lake Tribune. She was the 2018 recipient of the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Artist Award in the Literary Arts.