White Pot, Brown Dots: C.13-2017

Titles

White Pot, Brown Dots

Maker(s)

Maker: Britton, Alison

Entities

• Vessel

Categories

• Earthenware
• Studio Ceramics

Description

Earthenware, slab-built painted with slips and matt glazed.

Tall slab-built vessel, rising from a flat base to a wider opening at the top, both near-triangular in shape. Two sides are each built from a single piece of clay, the third formed from several pieces in a mix of angular and curving shapes. The surface is coated and painted with slips, with gestural marks and dots in white and brown over varied buffs. The decoration, mostly applied prior to fabrication, displays the physical marks of application. The underside is flat and unglazed.

Notes

History note: Purchased from Alison Britton in 1986 by the donor

Legal notes

Given by Ed Wolf

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (2017-07-17) by Wolf, Ed

Dating

20th Century, Late
Elizabeth II
Production date: dated AD 1986

Note

Alison Britton (b.1948) is a leading British potter with an international reputation. She trained at the Central School of Art & Design and the Royal College of Art, where one of her tutors was Hans Coper. She has taught at the RCA for many years and is also well known as a curator, writer and lecturer. In the early 1970s, Britton played a significant part in the shift away from thrown, functional , studio ceramics towards more colourful, expressive, hand-built wares. In 1990 she was awarded an OBE in recognition of her services to the applied arts.

Britton’s abstract, gestural mark making and painterly application of slips blurs the line between art and craft. In her own words: ‘ the improvised relationship between the painted surface and the irregular form is what continues to engage me”.