British Studio Ceramics after the Second World War

From Hard years to handbuilding

The Second World War did not help the fortunes of British studio ceramics.  Very little had been made by potters during the war.  After the War few people had money to spend on buying pots.  Some of the country’s leading potters like William Staite Murray had emigrated and many potters turned to making domestic earthenware. 
 
In comparison to the restrained colouring and decoration of the pre-war ceramics the earthenware produced in the late 1940s and 1950s by potters like Steven Sykes and William Newland was bold, colourful and fun.  Large plates and bowls provided surfaces for lively painted decoration, showing figures, animals and birds. 

The war did bring to England Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, fleeing Hitler’s anti-semitism.  The influence of these two potters on British studio ceramics was just as important as that of Bernard Leach. Although Lucie Rie had been well-known as a potter in her native Vienna, when she arrived in England she had to begin all over again.  During the 1950s she produced dramatic, sophisticated pieces which clearly illustrated her assurance as a potter.  The work of Hans Coper, who began working in England with Lucie Rie, showed similar quality and techniques but the shape of his pots was very different.  Coper’s inspiration came largely from early Mediterranean ceramics and sculpture and contemporary painters like Ben Nicholson. 

A big change of direction for studio ceramics came with the handbuilding of the late 1950s and 1960s.  Techniques such as coiling, pinching and slabbing, in contrast to throwing on a potter’s wheel, had been seen as rather amateurish.  But increasingly professional potters began to resent the lack of artistic freedom imposed by throwing and explored methods of handbuilding.

Some of these pots, like those made by Gordon Baldwin, were particularly sculptural and helped to blur the distinction between ‘sculpture’ and ‘ceramics’.  The most important potter in the development of handbuilding at this time was Ruth Duckworth.  Duckworth was another refugee from Germany, who was inspired to begin handbuilding after seeing ancient Mexican pots in the British Museum.  Her work ranged from rough coiled stoneware pots to delicate pinched porcelain pieces.  Her inspiration from the natural world (including pebbles, seed pods and fruits) complemented this more fluid approach to producing pots. 

Many of the handbuilders concentrated on producing pots which had coarse textures and heavy forms.  These included Ian Auld, who was particularly well-known for his rectangular pots produced from slabs of clay, Dan Arbeid and Bernard Rooke.