Donald Wells

Donald was primarily a sculptor, born in Silverdale Staffordshire in 1929. He studied at Newcastle-under-Lyme School of Art, where Jack Clarkson, an associate of Henry Moore, taught him.

Living on the outskirts of the Potteries, he got his first job in the late 1940s at the Goldscheider (Staffordshire) Pottery Ltd, which made figurines. This pottery was started by Marcel Goldscheider, who was a member of the famous German ceramic family, who fled Germany in 1938.

Donald also mentioned a stint working on modelling ceramics at Wedgwood in the next room to Ernest Machin, who some of you may know of.

Donald sister, Bessie, remained working in the Potteries throughout her career and was Jessie Tait's second in command at the Midwinter Pottery for many years. However, Donald came down to London in the early 1950s to seek his fortune and become an artist.


Donald had several exhibitions with me at the Harlequin Gallery and this monograph was published by Donald, with my help in 2008.

Donald passed away in 2014.

After reading this post on Donald Wells i looked a bit further online as i was intrigued by the sculpture showing (this would go nicely in my garden) some of his other stone work seems to have a tribal /south American inspiration, i like his bronzes especially the polished pieces .

The sculpture on the front of the monograph is in plaster and so wouldn't last long in the garden.

The interesting thing about sculpture that is never reflected in the price is that this piece and other plaster sculptures are the original pieces produced by the artist. These are used to make moulds which are then used to make a series of copies in bronze in a foundry, almost always, by a team of skilled technicians.

This patinated bronze called Ying Yang was the largest bronze of Donald's that I sold.

From memory it was over 2 foot tall.  


That could go outside but might get nicked for scrap.

Nice piece, i take your point about getting 'nicked' ,this is a problem everywhere ,we have lost items in the past and as we have a field at the rear it makes for easy access to the garden.

Here's a photograph of Donald in 1999 at the first of his exhibitions at the Harlequin Gallery, with his work in the background.

This is an image of a concrete wall piece by Donald at the former Royal Mail Sorting Office at Longfield in Kent that I took in 2008.

This is called "Bird-like" and is an original plaster mounted on painted wood. The slightly odd thing about sculpture is that the most revered items are bronzes. However, it should be noted that bronzes are often done as editions, in the same way as prints, and, if they are, it is a plaster work that is the original and the bronze is merely a copy.

Another original plaster mounted on wood - the title of the work is Pods

Reclining figure - a small unique bronze made using the "lost wax" process.

A wall relief in aluminium called Serpentine.