Gillian Lowndes

Gillian Lowndes (1936 - 2010) is not someone that you would think a "brown pot man" like myself would be interested in but today I caught the last day of an exhibition of her work here in London. I very much agree with the blurb associated with the exhibition that she "was one of the ceramic world's most daring, radical and original artists of the post-war generation."

Below are 3 pieces from the exhibition: -


In the foreground is "Mesh Collage with Loofah and Hooks" 1991, behind to the left is "For Jenny" 1990-4 (collage with extruded clay and can opener) and on the wall is "Hook Figure" 1994 (ceramic, loofahs and hooks).

here's "Almost off the Wall" 2001, which is ceramic and wire.  

I have been trying to convince my wife that we should buy a piece of gillian lowndes but she is not convinced, i quite like her work but i dont fully understand it. this type of her   output i think has very little to do with studio ceranics.

I tend to uses the terms "studio pottery" when I am talking about the type of things that I generally sell i.e. based on functional forms and "studio ceramics" when I am talking about work that has moved away from that.

So to me this is studio ceramics and the art historian, Herbert Reed, stated over 80 years ago that “pottery is plastic art in its most abstract form”. Therefore, I suspect that he would have thought that her work have something to do with studio ceramics and studio pottery.

Ian Auld, her husband, gave up making pots and concentrated on dealing in tribal art because he felt his work could never match that of his wife, so that ought to mean something too.

For me, some of her work is brilliant.

i am a great fan of the more sculptural studio ceramics such as baldwin and henderson  but it seems to me lowndes has moved even further into pure sculpture , i have only seen a limited amount of her work so i will try to see more pieces before  buying a piece. The problem i think is display, in a gallery they look great in large white spaces on their plinths but i am  not sure they will work so well in a normal domestic setting.

I have her Ruthin Craft Centre book by Amanda Fielding. Fascinating Ceramicist? Sculptor? Artist? She worked upon that very edge of a number of disciplines. Her work looks superb in Museums. In a domestic centre you could imagine it in one of those white space stripped down modernist Californian Mansions.
You need a palatial London Penthouse to display them in this country
Superb and slightly mysterious work. Hard to believe she has now been dead for over a decade.