Elizabeth FritschCBE (born 1940) is a British studio potter and ceramic artist born into a Welsh family in Whitchurch on the Shropshire border.[1] Her innovative hand built and painted pots are often influenced by ideas from music, painting, literature, landscape and architecture.[2]
Elizabeth Fritsch is a studio potter and ceramic artist. She uses fine technically proficient hand built coiling techniques; architectural ceramic form, optical effects and surface design which, are usually hand painted with coloured slips.[3] The stoneware are biscuit fired and often re-fired a number of times. Each Fritsch pot is unique, individual and distinctive. They are usually displayed in selected groups and themes set to the artist's requirements.
Fritsch initially studied at the Birmingham School of Music studying harp, and then piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1958 to 1964; but she later took up ceramics under Hans Coper and Eduardo Paolozzi at the Royal College of Art from 1968 to 1971.[4] Adopting her career name from her marriage to Jean Mathis-Fritsch (m.1966-71) she had a son Bertie born in 1966. In the seventies Fritsch, was one of the first of a group of progressive 'New Ceramics' to emerge from the Royal College of Art, along with other ceramicists including Alison Britton, Carol McNicoll and Jacqueline Poncelet. Under David Queensbury, the group formed a shift and influence in British ceramic art, breaking away from the more traditional forms, colour, design and function of the more utilitarian ceramics that had preceded. Fritsch lived and worked at Digswell Arts Trust from 1975 to 1983. Her daughter Ruby Hughes was born in 1980 and in the same year was awarded the John Ruskin Bursary for a fictional archaeology project. This project went into developing an important new body of work and shift in the artist career.'Pots from Nowhere'(fictional archaeology) was shown at the Royal College of Art by Queensberry Hunt in 1984.
In 1985, Fritsch set up a studio in London.[5] Since her first show in 1972, Fritsch has had a number of solo shows. In 1996 and 2001 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Ceramics. Fritsch's work is represented in major art collections and museums in more than nine countries and her work is represented in major British art museum collections.[6][7] A major retrospective was held at the National Museum Cardiff, in 2010, featuring a complete range of her most significant studio pottery and recent pieces. Since the late 1970s Fritsch has considered "the space between the second and third dimensions", in her work; a concept she first described as "two-and-a-half dimensions" with her distinctive rhythmic patterns and optical effects.[8]Dynamic Structures: Painted Vessels also marked her 70th birthday.[9] A co-curated solo exhibition of selected studio works was presented at Frieze Masters - Frieze Art Fair in October 2023 at Regents Park, London by Adrian Sassoon Gallery, October 11-15th 2023 within Luke Syson's Stand Out section exploring the juxtapositions and use of colour.
Fritsch is to have a major survey exhibition of her work and career at The Hepworth Wakefield in March 2025 entitled Otherworldly Vessels[10]
Awards
2001: Shortlisted for Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts 2001: Ceramics[11]
1996: Shortlisted for Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts 1996: Ceramics
1995: Awarded CBE:Commander of the British Empire[12]
2000: Memory of Architecture, Part II, Besson Gallery, London
1998: Sea Pieces, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
1995–6: Retrospective touring to Munich, Karlsruhe, Halle and Bellerive, Zurich
1995: Metaphysical Pots, Bellerive Museum
1994–5: Order and Chaos, Bellas Artes, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1994: Osiris Gallery, Brussels
1993–5: Vessels from Another World, Northern Centre for the Contemporary Arts, Sunderland, travelling to Aberdeen, Birmingham, Cardiff, London, Norwich, UK
1992–3: Retrospective, Pilscheur Fine Art, London
1991: Hetjens Museum, Düsseldorf, Germany
1990: Cross Rhythms and Counterpoint, Edinburgh, Scotland
1978: Pots about Music, Leeds Galleries, Temple Newsham; travelled to Glasgow, Bristol, Gateshead, Bolton, and V&A, London
Peter Dormer and David Cripps “Elizabeth Fritsch in Studio – A view”, In Studio Series, Bellew, London, 1985. ISBN978-0-947792-04-6
Elizabeth Fritsch, Pots about Music. Authors: Elizabeth Fritsch, David Cripps, Leeds City Art Gallery (England), David Queensberry, Alison Britton, Ian Bennett. Publisher, Leeds Art Galleries, 1978, ASIN B0007AT9X2
E. Cameron & P. Lewis, Potters on Pottery, Elizabeth Fritsch, pgs. 62-69 Evans Brothers, London 1976. ISBN0-312-63280-0
John Houston The Abstract Pot forms of expression and decoration by nine artist potters, Bellew Publishing, 1991.
Fischer Fine Art (1986) Nine Potters: Bernard Leach, Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, Michael Cardew, Hans Coper, Lucie Rie, Elizabeth Fritsch, Ewen Henderson, Elizabeth Raeburn, Claudi Casanovas, Catalogue of an exhibition held at Fisher Fine Art, 1986. ASIN B001ON0RX2
John Russell Taylor, "Elizabeth Fritsch: Pots About Music" Ceramic Review, 58 Jul/Aug 1979 pgs 30–33.
J.D.H. Catleugh "Recent Pots: Improvisations from Earth to Air", Ceramic Review, 44 Mar/Apr 1977 pg 7.
↑ Elizabeth Fritsch: The Fine Art Society, London, in association with Joanna Bird Pottery. Published by The Fine Art Society, in association with Joanna Bird Pottery, for the exhibition Elizabeth Fritsch, 12 – 27 Nov 2008, ISBN978-0-905062-57-0
↑ 'Ceramics Points of View' collaboration between The National Electronic and Video Archive of the Crafts and the V&A. Elizabeth Fritsch, 'Optical Pot', stoneware, height 311mm, width 232mm, 1980. Museum no. C.13-1981
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