More recent arrivals, like Butterly and Elisa D’Arrigo, favor thin-walled, manipulated pieces that take their tips from Ohr. Aneta Regel, who was born in 1976 and is the youngest artist in the collection, favors emphatically rough-surfaced organic forms and blazing colors. In this presentation — expertly selected and installed by Adrienne Spinozzi, an American Wing curator — more than half of the artists are entering the Met’s collection for the first time. An example is the formidable John Gill, whose hand-building technique results in geometric planes that almost seem chopped from wood.
In some cases, Ellison chose examples of an artist’s career from different periods, as in the case of three impressive pieces by Peter Callas — a former Voulkos assistant — from 1994, 2002 and 2016, each crusty and delicate in its own way. Arnie Zimmerman is represented by a kind of nautical monster from 1994 titled “Bladder, Tongue and Tangle.” I’ll take his “Light Green Tangle,” from 2013, which holds its own beside Salto’s vine-covered vase in one of the show’s best vitrines. Also here are Margaret Israel’s “Vessel,” a shallow basin thrillingly supported by little more than unspooling, ribbonlike tendrils of clay, and Howard Kottler’s “Chalice” (1965), thick-lipped, with a footed base that twists, something like a heavy robe winding around its royal wearer.
