Karl Martz (1912 – 1997) was an American studio potter, ceramic artist, and teacher whose work achieved national and international recognition. Born Karl Martz was born in Columbus, Ohio, USA to Velorus Martz, a high school principal and later professor of Education at Indiana University, and Amy Lee Kidwell Martz, in 1912. "While I was in high school [1925-29], the whole family took a motor trip through the West. The car got into the sand in New Mexico and ripped out its differential, and we were stuck waiting for its replacement. So we put up our tent and stayed a couple of weeks. I entertained myself in part by making little pots and firing them in a pit -- I'd read the Indians did this. I still have one of them." Education Martz graduated from Indiana University in 1933 with a bachelor's degree in Chemistry. Career Beginnings Martz's first exposure to a professional ceramic art studio was in 1931 when he attended a summer course at Ohio State University. For the summer of 1932, Griffith Pottery in Nashville, Brown County, Indiana (a tourist destination and artist's colony) hired Martz to improve their glaze formulas. In 1933, Martz graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington, with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He worked again at Griffith Pottery in the summer of 1933. In 1933-34, Martz returned to Ohio State University to do graduate work in ceramic art with Arthur E. Baggs, Carlton Atherton, and Edgar Littlefield. He worked as an apprentice at Brown County Pottery for a year. In 1935, he began a series of rustic studios in the woods near Nashville, Indiana. Pre-War Studio Around 1936, Martz was discovered by his subsequent patron, Scott Murphy, an art collector who had a summer home in Nashville, Indiana. Murphy funded Martz to move his studio from its remote location in the woods to downtown Nashville, where many more tourists would encounter his work. Murphy also funded a new showroom. During the period from 1935-1942, Martz was enormously productive, making colorful earthenware. In 1936 and 1937, his work was exhibited in the National Ceramic Exhibition in Syracuse, New York, and included in the exhibit circuit. This was the first of widespread recognition he achieved during the remainder of his life. Nationally syndicated journalist, Ernie Pyle, described Martz in 1940 as follows: Karl Martz is reticent, low-spoken, gratefully polite. He does not speak in arty terms.