Special Exhibition

December 14, 2003 - January 18th, 2004

COLIN PEARSON AT EIGHTY

(Great Britain)

Colin Pearson’s 80th birthday is a welcome opportunity to celebrate one of the great heroes of modern European ceramics – someone whose work has become one of the defining images of British studio pottery. This is quite simply because Colin has created his own – highly innovative – language, an approach which combines a complex reading of history with his own formal resourcefulness. He readily admits to a low boredom threshold, so not for him a long life of domestic ware. In the 1960‘s he moved on – using the wheel in a quite radical way, developing a loose very gestural mode of throwing that gave fresh prominence and expression to the constitution of clay.

Then, in the wings and attachments that began to emerge in the early seventies, he created a new kind of counter-motion, adding both equilibrium and an extra dynamic to his freely conceived cylinders. In so doing he not only introduced a new constructive intervention in wheel-based work, but created a quite different sculptural object, still part of the cord of tradition, but expanding the parameters of ceramic form. These objects have proliferated in shape, from crisp translucent porcelain of great delicacy to monumental stonewares – big bowls and flatter relief structures to tall energetic jugs with spiralling handles. The bolder the pieces the bolder the glazing too, greatly varied in colour and texture, but always accentuating the body and fabric of the pot. And Pearson is a superb miniaturist, his particular clarity of definition effective on a small and intimate scale too.

Colin Pearson is held in great esteem and affection. Despite the toll of recent illness his wicked humour is still thankfully intact – integral to a rare generosity of spirit experienced by generations of students and, indeed, all those who have come into contact with him. We salute not only his achievement as artist and teacher, but also that warm abiding humanity. So thank you Colin – and a very happy birthday!

DAVID WHITING