Straddling form and function | The increasing collectability of ceramic art
‘Potty for it!’ gushed an Elle Magazine headline in October 2022, describing ‘the new wave of ceramics that have reached cult status’. And the jaunty pot puns didn’t stop there: ‘as designers blur the lines between art and function,’ continued the fashion mag’s on-form sub-editor, ‘it seems everyone’s got the hots for pots.’
Hans Coper, Large Angled Composite Form, c. 1950s, stoneware, 26 x 18 cm
Traditionally, of course, pottery has been seen as a craft, its end-product designed for functional use: pots for keeping food in, jugs for pouring liquid, vases for flowers and bowls for eating out of. In the early part of the twentieth century, however, Bernard Leach and his contemporaries (including Shoji Hamada and Michael Cardew, who he worked with at Leach Pottery in St Ives) began to challenge perceptions, emphasizing the aesthetic and artistic qualities of ceramics, creating works that straddled form and function. William Staite Murray went even further, rejecting any need for functionality in his work, and exhibiting his pieces alongside sculptures by Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth and paintings by Christopher Wood, stating in 1935: ‘I would ask you to consider Pottery not only for its utility, but also to see it as an abstract plastic art. It is in fact a very pure art, a direct formal expression.’
Post-war émigré ceramicists Lucie Rie and Hans Coper pushed the medium further, experimenting with surface textures and providing a contemporary, Modernist response to Viennese, Japanese and historical pieces. The likes of Ewen Henderson, Elizabeth Fritsch, Gordon Baldwin and Carol McNicholl continued to exhibit their pottery at high-end galleries, further establishing the UK as a centre of ceramic excellence. McNicoll, in particular, eschewed the use of the wheel, hand-building or slip-casting her exuberant works (while also designing costumes for her boyfriend Brian Eno of Roxy Music and machine-sewing patterns for Zandra Rhodes). Other artists, such as Gillian Lowndes, incorporated unconventional materials – wire, tins, bricks and cutlery – into their works.
More recently Edward de Waal and, in particular, Grayson Perry have done much to popularise ceramic art, pushing the medium into the general public consciousness. Perry is, it could be argued, the country’s first household-name potter, a national treasure, no less, fond of incorporating radical, satirical themes into his work.
The current boom in ceramics has been reflected in several recent excellent exhibitions in the UK, most noticeably the big show last autumn at the Hayward, Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, which cemented pottery’s exuberant rise of status in the hierarchy of art forms. The show was a smash hit [sorry about that], with works by the likes of Jonathan Baldock (earlier this year exhibited at Charleston’s trendy new gallery in Lewes), Edmund de Waal, Takuro Kuwata, Betty Woodman and, of course, Grayson Perry. Other recent shows include Lucie Rie: The Adventure of Pottery at Kettle’s Yard, Shoji Hamada at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Hylton Nel: This plate is all I have to say at Charleston (all in 2023) and, earlier this summer, St Ives: Bernard Leach and the Early Pioneers, at Oxford Ceramics Gallery, who we are delighted to have on board again during the 2024 British Art Fair.
Lucie Rie, Footed Bowl, c. 1986, stoneware, volcanic grey glaze, golden manganese band around lip, 8.5 x 16.5 cm
There are regular pottery festivals, too: catering for the growing number of collectors - particularly young collectors - who have become aware that ceramicists still offer extremely good value for money, selling at a fraction of the price of paintings and sculptures by similar-status contemporaries. Since 1997 Potfest has been exhibiting the work of up to 500 UK and European ceramicists in a growing number of venues, including their flagship events at Compton Verney and Hutton-in-the-Forest; 2009 saw the inauguration of the British Ceramics Biennial showcasing the work of contemporary British and international artists across a variety of venues in Stoke, the traditional home of the British ceramics industry.
Akiro Hirai, Extra Large Moon Jar, ceramic, 70 x 63 cm
At last year’s British Art Fair, one of the most popular stands, run by Beaux Arts Bath, featured contemporary London-based Japanese artist Akiro Hirai’s extraordinary ‘Moon Jars’, reimagining traditional Korean vessels with the addition of craggy chunks of clay and rugged accretions of glaze. She is among the contributing artists the gallery will be showing at the 2024 edition of the Fair. Oxford Ceramics Gallery are returning, as well, showing works by ceramic artists past and present, including Peter Collingwood, Hans Coper, Lucy Rie, Rupert Spira, Edmund de Waal and John Ward.
If you’re interested in collecting high-end pottery, get in there while you can, as prices are rising. At a Phillips auction in London last autumn, the 1981 Lucy Rie piece Footed Bowl achieved a record-breaking £330,200, quadrupling its pre-sale estimate. In November 2021 a Phillips and Maak Contemporary auction of the ceramics collection of Dr John Driscoll, including works by Michael Cardew and Hans Coper, saw its pre-sale estimate of £2m exceeded by 228%, setting 28 world auction records. Hot for pots, indeed.