John Ward

Erskine, Hall & Coe are delighted to exhibit a diverse body of work by John Ward, which is presented as a celebration of his career spanning nearly five decades.

Ward, now in his eighties, is one of the most distinguished modern British potters, having studied under Hans Coper and Lucie Rie at the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts in the 1960s.

His pottery draws influence from a number of ancient and modern sources. He refers to the forms of ancient Chinese and Egyptian pre-glaze pottery and early Cypriot and Persian bowls, as well as the work of Coper, Rie and Ian Godfrey in creating his sculptural stoneware vessels. They are hand-built with flattened coils of clay and pinched bases, distinguished for their simple yet sometimes complex structures, and often feature abstract and geometric decoration.  Whilst Ward is best known for his black and white pieces, our exhibition features a selection of these alongside a varied range of colours and scale.  Ward has said of his style,

Being near the sea has probably had an effect on the banded decoration I use, either reflecting the movement of water and waves or the dips and folds of the strata revealed in cliff faces. This in turn has affected form.

His work has been collected and exhibited internationally, and is held in several important public collections including the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Our show comprises twenty-nine pieces, will be open from the 8th of May through the 1st of June and is free to attend.