John Ward

Hi Philpot, Interesting that a number of pieces are POA,, some pieces are familiar, the large flattened striped job seems to be the one showing in the workshop/studio of John Ward in the Hepworth interview. I don't know if you are aware but there is a book on Ward pottery coming out in October (not before time) a retrospective will probably follow .

I always shy away from POA or in the case of auctions 'refer to department', this normally means expectations are high but prices could be negotiable.

I would have said the white and "green" one was more iconic of his work, so would be my choice of the two.

I was the underbidder on the black and white piece at Woolley's, i already have two black and white pieces but this piece i thought exceptional, i think the prices for his black and white's have levelled for the present time.I have been surprised by the sudden rise in the green striped examples , i think it started with the Driscoll collection sale where a couple fetched unexpected high prices, the few that have sold recently i thought were ok but not very exciting. Should one of his large disc form pots in green and white come to market i think we could see £20,000.

I'm not the person to ask but I have only even liked the plain ones with the white/off white glaze. I had one that I wish that I had kept but have never wished to own anything else by him. Since I began dealing they have always been popular but they're just not for me. I think it might be that my love of ceramics is all about the clay.

Hi philpot, As you say John Ward was a superb potter and sadly many of the great potters have now gone ( many of us collectors also have the grim reaper not far behind) .He left us with a large body of work to enjoy and has a dedicated following. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but those that have had only good things to say about him,he avoided publicity and just got on with making pots. I will certainly try to add more examples to my collection although many of his pots are now entering into five figure sums.

I don't think the prices will rise much because of his death as he stopped making pots around six years ago, what i think will happen is that the b/w and striped examples will increase slightly but the plainer pieces will remain at the lower level. It is difficult to buy a b/w piece under £10,000 with premium and the striped pieces are catching up fast. I don't think the quality of an artists work should be judged on auction prices but the two seem to go hand in hand. I think Hans Coper is a world apart from any other potter and will remain so. The problem with John ward was that he was quite prolific so there are enough to go around whereas potters such as Jennifer Lee restrict their output to keep prices high.

Limitations of space are a problem for pot collectors, i guess most of us live with quite minimal interiors and a collection of pots on display can look very untidy, i suppose a pot room would be the answer but this is not always possible ,your thoughts on admiring from aside is probably a good idea,after all none of us would want to end up like Bill Ismay.

Thanks for that philpot, they always seem to illustrate the black and white pieces.

Nice shape and colour ,my wife has a preference for his acid green pieces. I haven't made my mind up about the yellow piece in the Partridge sale.