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New Work and The Ed Wolf Collection

17 June to 30 July 2005

An exhibition of new work by the celebrated British potter Alison Britton is accompanied by a retrospective view of her creative career. This rare opportunity to chart the development of her thinking and approach comes courtesy of the Wolf Collection, which includes nearly seventy important examples of her ceramic works made during the past three decades.

While pots from the mid-seventies illustrate Britton‘s early interest in narrative, those dating from 1980 demonstrate a concern to move beyond traditional expectations of ceramic vessels, resulting in audacious, yet somehow logical inventions. One example is the ‘double pot’, which she has since acknowledged as ‘the most important form I have ever made’.

Her new work continues to surprise but it also retains some familiar characteristics in its asymmetry, ambiguity and distinctive awkwardness of stance. Such strategies represent a conscious challenge to conventional notions of beauty. She continues to be motivated by the notion of containment, although her references are broad. As she explains: ‘The body and the building as intermingled subjects are still the “containing” point of it for me’.

Some of the new vessels are larger than before and carry partially decipherable script that includes words like ‘trough’ and ‘side issue’, echoing the titles of works she has made in the recent past. These are initially stencilled onto the clay before construction and function as both material and conceptual starting points for new strands of thought. Ultimately form and surface are indivisible; diverse expressions composed of idiosyncratic elements of shape, traces of textual ideas and spontaneous marks are imaginatively brought to resolution.

Biographical notes

Born 1948, Alison Britton studied at the Central School of Art & Design (1967 - 70) and the Royal College of Art, London (1970 - 73). Internationally renowned as one of Britain‘s leading ceramic artists, she is also influential as a writer, lecturer and curator. Britton‘s work can be found in major public collections worldwide including: Australian National Gallery, Canberra; The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The British Council Collection; Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh and Victoria & Albert Museum, London. She was awarded an OBE in 1990.



For more information, transparencies, or to arrange an interview with the artist please contact

Juliana Barrett

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