Pottery and porcelain is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Types have included earthenware, pottery, stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exceptionally long and successful history of ceramic production. Earthenwares were made as early as the Jōmon period, giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world. Japan is further distinguished by the unusual esteem that ceramics hold within its artistic tradition, owing to the enduring popularity of the tea ceremony. During the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573–1603), kilns throughout Japan produced ceramics with unconventional designs. In the early Edo period, the production of porcelain commenced in the Hizen-Arita region of Kyushu, employing techniques imported from Korea. These porcelain works became known as Imari wares, named after the port of Imari from which they were exported to various markets, including Europe.
Bernard Howell Leach was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery".
The term "ethical pot" was coined by Oliver Watson in his book Studio Pottery: Twentieth Century British Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum to describe a 20th-century trend in studio pottery that favoured plain, utilitarian ceramics. Watson said that the ethical pot,"lovingly made in the correct way and with the correct attitude, would contain a spiritual and moral dimension." Its leading proponents were Bernard Leach and a more controversial group of post-war British studio potters. They were theoretically opposed to the expressive pots or fine art pots of potters such as William Staite Murray, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.
Hans Coper was an influential German-born British studio potter. His work is often coupled with that of Lucie Rie due to their close association, even though their best known work differs dramatically, with Rie's being less sculptural, while Coper's was much more abstract, but also always functional. The latter point was noted by M. S. Thomas in his recent book "The Essential Potness." Coper always made functional vessels, principally containers for flowers (vases), fruit (bowls), candles including work for Coventry Cathedral and Sussex University meeting house. He made a small group of Figures in the fifties, which were not vessels and were never put on sale.
Dame Lucie Rie, was an Austrian-born, independent, British studio potter working in a time when most ceramicists were male. She is known for her extensive technical knowledge, her meticulously detailed experimentation with glazes and with firing and her unusual decorative techniques.
Dora May Billington (1890–1968) was an English teacher of pottery, a writer and a studio potter. Her own work explored the possibilities of painting on pottery.
Angus Suttie was a studio potter and teacher of art ceramics, most notably at Morley College, London. Suttie studied at Camberwell School of Art under Glennys Barton, Ewen Henderson and Colin Pearson. This education promoted experimentation, rejecting the Bernard Leach derived Anglo-oriental style which emphasised wheel-throwing. Having studied together at Camberwell, Angus was invited by Sara Radstone to share her studio space in South London; he and Radstone went on to exhibit together on several occasions, most notably in their two-person show at Contemporary Applied Arts in London's Covent Garden.
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott OAM (1935–2013) was an Australian ceramic artist. She was recognized as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists. By the time she died she was regarded as "one of the world's greatest contemporary potters". She worked in Australia, England, Europe, the US, New Zealand, Japan and Korea. In a career spanning nearly 60 years, influences from her apprenticeships to English potters were still apparent in her later work. But in the 1980s she turned away from production pottery to making porcelain still-life groups largely influenced by the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi.
Mark Hewitt is an English-born studio potter living in the small town of Pittsboro, North Carolina outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 2015 he received a United States Artist Fellowship, for contributions to the creative landscape and arts ecosystems of the country. He was a finalist for the 2015 Balvenie Rare Craft Fellowship Award, for contributions to the maintenance and revival of traditional or rare craft techniques. In 2014 he was awarded a Voulkos Fellowship at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana, for outstanding contributions to the ceramic arts.
Maija (Majlis) Grotell was an influential Finnish-American ceramic artist and educator. She is often described as the "Mother of American Ceramics."
Elizabeth Fritsch CBE is a British studio potter and ceramic artist born into a Welsh family in Whitchurch on the Shropshire border. Her innovative hand built and painted pots are often influenced by ideas from music, painting, literature, landscape and architecture.
Charles Fergus Binns was an English-born studio potter. Binns was the first director of the New York State School of Clayworking and Ceramics, currently called the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He began his position in 1900 and retired in 1931. His work included authorship of several books on the history and practice of pottery. Some of his more notable students included Arthur Eugene Baggs, William Victor Bragdon, R. Guy Cowan, Maija Grotell, Elizabeth Overbeck, and Adelaide Alsop Robineau. This has led Binns to be called "the father of American studio ceramics".
Jack Doherty is a Northern Irish studio potter and author. He is perhaps best known for his vessels made of soda-fired porcelain. He has been featured in a number of books, and his work has been exhibited widely in both Europe and North America. Articles of his have appeared in various pottery journals and he has been Chair of the Craft Potters Association.
John Parker is a New Zealand ceramicist and theatre designer.
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take varied forms, including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is a visual art. While some ceramics are considered fine art, such as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramic art can be created by one person or by a group, in a pottery or a ceramic factory with a group designing and manufacturing the artware.
John Parker Glick was an American ceramicist. Though open to artistic experimentation, Glick was most influenced by the styles and aesthetics of Asian pottery—an inspiration that shows in his use of decorative patterns and glaze choices. His experience working with ceramics led him to publish several articles about the craft. In addition to producing pottery, Glick began making "landscape oriented" wall panels during the latter part of his career. Known as "the people's potter," he is primarily remembered for his contributions to art and the field of ceramics.
The Coxwold Pottery was a pottery studio based in the village of Coxwold, North Yorkshire, England, launched by artist potters Peter and Jill Dick in 1965, and in operation until 2012.
Denise Wren was an Australian-born British studio potter and craftsperson. Wren was one of the first female studio potters in Britain. She studied and taught with the Kingston School of Art, Knox Guild and Camberwell College of Arts. Wren and her family subsequently set up the Oxshott Pottery and wrote on the subjects of ceramics, textiles and making.
Jennifer Elizabeth Lee is a Scottish ceramic artist with an international reputation. Lee's distinctive pots are hand built using traditional pinch and coil methods. She has developed a method of colouring the pots by mixing metallic oxides into the clay before making. Her work is held in over forty museums and public collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2018 Lee won the Loewe Craft Prize, an award initiated by Jonathan Anderson in 2017. The prize was presented to her at an awards ceremony at The Design Museum in London.
