Terra cotta vase

In 1952, McCutchen received one of the first Sarah H. Moss Fellowships (which support University of Georgia faculty in advanced study abroad or in the United States) to study in Italy in Florence’s Art Institute, L’Istituto statale d’arte di Firenze. During his year away from Athens, he focused his work in ceramics on the “abstraction of natural forms…good design, and usefulness.” Several surviving works from this period in Italy use whiter clays than he favored in Athens, glazes applied in soft, gestural strokes, and forms with swooping outlines, resulting in works, like this one, that are light in tone and profile.