(b. 1955)
Neil Tetkowski has a B.F.A. from the SUNY College of Ceramics at Alfred University and an M.F.A. from Illinois State University. He has taught at various colleges including Buffalo State College. His work is exhibited internationally and included in such acclaimed collections as those of the American Craft Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Palace of Culture in Warsaw, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. BPAC owns five ceramic works by Tetkowski that demonstrate a range of his production.
Tetkowski’s work has been included in several exhibitions, one of the most important being Neil Tetkowski and the Common Ground World Project, in 2001, about the creation of a large ceramic mandala ¾ a symbol of unity recognized throughout the world ¾ formed by blending clay and sand submitted from 188 nations around the world. This collaborative project represented the unified cooperation of these United Nations member countries. Tetkowski led Nitin Desai, the Under Secretary General of Economic and Social Affairs at the U.N., and representatives from many participating countries in creating the Common Ground World Mandala Monument at the United Nations Headquarters in New York as part of a performance in April 2000. During the event, participants placed tiles of fired clay from each country into a soft clay disk. Handprints of the oldest and youngest participants were placed in the center. The mandala maquette with a display of the 188 clay samples, preliminary drawings, and another disk made from the world clay were included in the exhibition with earlier mandala-shaped works by Tetkowski from the Burchfield-Penney’s collection.