New ceramic exhibition opens at Museum & Art Swindon

One of the finest collections of its type in the South West, MAS’s collection spans a whole century of ceramic making with the ‘Beneath the Surface’ exhibition looking at the history of studio ceramics in Britain from the early 1920s until today.

The exhibition examines the ethos that placed beauty and practicality at the heart of everyday objects and traces the evolution of clay as a contemporary art medium. It also highlights innovative styles and techniques across the last century and the porous boundaries between art and craft, breaking down limiting categories of fine art and craft items.

Swindon’s collection began as a teaching collection in the 1960s by Peter Burgess, the Head of Ceramics at Swindon School of Art.

Burgess knew many of the key studio ceramicists of the day, including one of the founding people of the studio ceramics movement in Britain, Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie.

He also worked with ground-breaking potters such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper who made ceramics into fine art, local potteries like the Cricklade Pottery and potters continuing to work producing finely-crafted useful vessels such as Ray Finch at the Winchcombe Pottery and Alan Caiger Smith at the Aldermaston Pottery.

A small collection of these pieces was brought into Swindon’s collection in 1974 with Burgess also continuing to advise the museum. Key potters of the 1970s and 1980s such as Alison Britton, Janice Tchalenko and Carol McNicoll were also brought into the collection.

Today, Museum & Art Swindon is actively collecting and the ‘Beneath the Surface’ exhibition features a number of new acquisitions including from contemporary artists such as Peter Ting, Natasha Daintry and Tessa Eastman, as well as a collection of pieces by one of the key early artists working in the medium, William Staite Murray.

The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly-illustrated new book about the collection, Beneath the Surface, written by the exhibition curators, Collections & Exhibitions Officers Katie Ackrill and Kirsty Hartsiotis.

Funded with the generous support of KennedyTing and State Ceramics, the book explores how the collection developed as a teaching collection and looks at the studio ceramics scene in the South West of which Peter Burgess and the Swindon School of Art was part.

Alongside the exhibition is a new display from Museum & Art Swindon's fine art collection, ‘Dialogues: Continuing Conversations from Beneath the Surface’, presenting paintings and prints that resonate with themes in the main exhibition.

Works include paintings by Desmond Morris, Ben Nicholson, Edward Bawden and Mary Fedden, as well as new acquisitions by local artist Ray Hedger and by Tirzah Garwood, an important member of the Great Bardfield artists, which was presented by the Friends of Museum & Art Swindon.

Frances Yeo, Swindon Museums Manager, said: “Producing the first major exhibition of our studio ceramics collection has been a gargantuan task, undertaken alongside the production of a brand-new book on the subject as well as a supporting exhibition.

“The exhibitions and book are a tour de force, which really are a must see for any art lover - and with so much to see you may have to come back again to explore it all.”