John Maltby

John Malby working in his studio. It is interesting to see the range of parts of pieces in front of him.

https://www.pyramidgallery.com/product-category/artists/john-maltby/

A link to the Pyramid Gallery York, and their tribute to John Maltby. There are 55 images in total of his sculptural work.

I have always found this one fascinating. It touches on a number of parts of John Maltby's life. His father was a fishmonger. He always had a permanent love of St Ives. More important perhaps it is such a Figure full of Joy and Laughter!

What a gorgeous piece! Early 70's maybe.

Surely is this not Lady Godiva? Protesting that she is cold? (arms crossed) If it's a man then he must be very cold if you get my meaning?

The is perfect illustration really of the charm, vitality and humour that John Maltby bought to his work.
When you think he spent several as an apprentice years of 1962/63 with David Leach, you would expect a straight line Leach style potter. But he did such an extraordinary range of work. Collages, Boats, Automatons, sculpture.... I think he did this sort of work in the early 70's. You do not see a great deal of it on the market.
But this piece is so atypical John Maltby. Whacky, humourous and delightful. This one verges on the fully ribald! I envy you!
Given the pieces he made later in life. I wonder if this type of piece was really his first love? But he could never really get a market for them.

I think his domesticwres are a good investment. Dirt cheap - no one wants them - completely ignored but imagine if LR had made a cheap set of standard ware. They won't make thousands or even hundreds but should go up IMO.

To be honest Crawford, his domestic wares are pretty dull. I have had several Stoneshill pieces over the years, and they were actually not very good. There were a whole load of potters doing better work in the Leach tradition.

I know but I still think they will go up in price

Well you can certainly buy it cheap enough! In January a Stonehill coffee pot and teapot went for £10 at East Bristol Auctions.
Equally, prices for John Maltby items have cooled substantially. It might also just have to do with just how large a number of his items come on the market. There are well over 40 items of his for sale at auction in March alone this year.

OK I bought a piece of Alvar Alto glass new for work as they wanted 'decorations' and asked us to pick- it was £95 new 5 years ago. One sold for approx. £250 recently. I was impressed, but when I told them they were meh. All the other crap people bought from the internet is now worthless, but unless my price rise was worth thousands they were not interested. Meh they said.

X2+ your money in ANY NEW item in 5 years is impressive IMO - we are not talking vintage LR or Damien Hirst here - it's new glassware in a white box. They wanted decorations for the office.

Same with JM domestic ware - you won't retire on it but I still say it's undervalued.

Little do I know! these two went for a hammer price of £500 at Leyburn's North Yorkshire. Quite damaged as well, Both pieces had pieces knocked and re glued. Whether it was a one off one does not know, But these Maltby pieces are quite rare. As well as desirable now it seems.

Nothing to do with the recent discussion but I was going through my files the other day and came across this from a visit to John's to buy some items for stock in 2014.

It's written by John M and I thought it might be an interesting record.

NaomiM wrote:Wow. You could add a 0 to many of those today

They were wholesale prices but I did add it to show how times had changed.