Paul Soldner considered medicine as a career, but when he saw the horrors of the Holocaust, he decided to go into art.
Soldner, an internationally known ceramic artist, died Jan. 3 at his home in Claremont, Calif. He was 89.
A celebration of his life will be held in June in Aspen, where he lived half the year.
A medic in World War II, Soldner saw the bodies at an Austrian death camp. While there, he “was struck by charcoal drawings done by a prisoner on the walls of barracks,” said his daughter, Stephanie Soldner Sullivan of Denver and Aspen. “He was impressed that in such dire circumstances, someone had tried to create something and at the strength of the human spirit.”
He decided to go into art. He started with photography and later devoted himself to ceramics.
“He was internationally known,” said Maynard Tisch ler, professor emeritus of ceramic art at the University of Denver.
Tischler said Soldner exhibited his work and did workshops all over the world. “He was a real innovator, had tremendous energy and was a showman,” Tischler said.
“He encouraged students to break the mold and find our own vision,” said former student Alleghany Meadows, co-owner of the Harvey-Meadows Gallery in Aspen. Soldner loved working with students and an audience “because he wanted everyone actively involved,” Meadows said.
Another student, Mary McNaughton, said Soldner “taught us to expect the unexpected and to realize the unexpected might take us down another path. He instilled confidence and independence in students,” said McNaughton, director of the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College in California.
Soldner and his wife, the late Virginia, divided their time between Aspen, where he worked, and Claremont, where he taught at Scripps College.
Paul Soldner was born in Summerfield, Ill., on April 24, 1921. He earned a master’s in fine art at the Los Angeles County Art Institute.
He married Virginia “Ginny” Geiger, a painter, in June 1948. She died in 1995. He continued living both in Colorado and California because he loved to teach and loved to be in Aspen making art.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by two grandchildren and his sister, Louise Farling of Bluffton, Ohio.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
