Peter Schlesinger (b. 1948, Los Angeles) is an American artist, author, and former artist's model. He began his studies at UCSC and UCLA and in 1968 he moved to London, where he attended the Slade School of Art until 1972 and spent the next six years as a painter and photographer before transitioning into ceramic sculpture. He moved to New York in 1978 and continued his career as a painter, sculptor, potter and photographer.
In 1986, Schlesinger installed an electric kiln and had his first ceramics show five years later. In 1994, he began firing bigger pieces with more experimental glazes. This resulted in a wider colour palette comprising of shades of blue brighter than the cobalt blue of Ming Chinese porcelain, greens ranging from pine to lime, as well as striking reds produced from copper oxides rather than from iron, which are notoriously difficult to control.
Schlesinger's ceramics transmit a love of the sensuous nature of clay and the artist's interest in the history of pottery. Each work is an investigation into clay where no surface is the same and no form repeated. These are sculptures whose character is described with shapes and glazes which are both familiar and new, naive and sophisticated. Schlesinger works on a relatively large scale creating bold, inventive forms reminiscent of stone, bronze, ironwork and other materials which hint at a more ancient tradition. Yet they are entirely new and Schelsinger’s skill is to craft vibrant, original sculptures with a living connection to the past.
Schlesinger’s sculptures and paintings have been widely exhibited and are in the collections of the Parrish Art Museum, USA, The Farnsworth Museum, USA and Manchester Gallery of Art, UK. In 1993, Schlesinger was awarded the prestigious Tiffany Foundation Award.