Studio pottery, with an emphasis on that of British makers, will be offered in the first Harlequin Gallery of 2021. Three specific artists make up the first part of this selection of studio pottery. Then the second part will concentrate of the bowl form, from both British and Japanese ceramicists.
This exhibition will follow the same format, as used in 2020. In effect, ten pots being added to the “Recent Acquisitions” section of the Gallery website https://www.studio-pots.com/recent-acquisitions/ from 11 am (BST) on consecutive Mondays as follows:-
Monday 3 May – Richard Batterham
Monday 10 May – Bernard Charles + Derek Davis
Monday 17 May – CLOSED
Monday 24 May – Bowls I
Monday 31 May – Bowls II
PLEASE NOTE: – From Monday 17 May until Friday 21 May inclusive the gallery will be closed.
Richard Batterham
After visiting Richard Batterham for the best part of 30 years, it was sad when I heard that he had been forced to retire through health problems in 2019. He will have found it extremely hard not to walk “over the road” to work every day. Something that he had done for 60 years.
Little of his work has come on to the secondary market, since his retirement, to meet the continuing demand. Therefore, I am delighted to have been able to obtain a selection of predominantly smaller items to offer online this May.
Derek Davis & Bernard Charles
I believe that the work of these artists contrasts and complements each others and that of Richard Batterham. Giving a small glimpse of the variety of work produced over the years in the UK.
Derek Davis (1926 – 2008) was a London born artist, working in both pottery and painting, who spent most of his career in Arundel, West Sussex. After leaving the Central School of Art, he start a pottery in Buckinghamshire with his friend, Eric James Mellon, but moved to Arundel in 1955, remaining there until his death. His studio pottery covered a variety of styles that progressively moved away from function, developing, as Davis stated by “working as much by instinct as plan”. Most of his work in the exhibition is in porcelain and dates from the mid 1980s.
Bernard Charles‘s work also dates from the mid 1980s at which time he was based in West Sussex too. For much of his career he had taught ceramics and industrial design. By this time he had retired from this, as well as being a freelance designer for the Poole Pottery. His work was thrown in porcellanous stoneware. This was often turned with a textured surface and embellished with intaglio linear decoration. Carried out as the pot was being made, the decoration is an important part, as the piece was always conceived as a whole.
Staite Murray pupils – Left and centre by Henry Hammond and the blue one on the right by Percy Brown 
Rupert Spira “Poem” bowl 
Gordon Crosby large “torn” stoneware bowl 
Poh Chap Yeap – large stoneware brush decorated bowl 
Sebastian Blackie – a large hand-built earthenware bowl 
Richard Batterham stoneware bowls 
Richard Batterham jugs and a jam jar 
Derek Davis – a selection of porcelain studio pottery vessels 
Bernard Charles – porcellanous stoneware vases 
Bill Marshall thrown and brush decorated stoneware bowl
Bowls
Following the break in the middle of the month, the final two selections of 10 pots will consist of bowls in a variety of sizes, shapes and materials. As I write, the final selection has not be made. However, once this has happened, further examples besides the three shown in the slideshow above will be added below. Other studio pottery, besides the 40 items online, will be on show in the gallery for visitors to browse as well, by appointment.