Globular pot

The scale of this tiny thrown globular form by Bryan Newman encourages close looking. Surface cracks have been made by string, which has been dipped in slip and tied around the vessel immediately after it has been thrown. During firing the string has fused on top but fallen away and left an imprint on the unglazed sides. Newman’s early works in the Sainsbury Centre Collection (see also 50761 and 50792) further demonstrate his experimental and inventive approach to clay.

Newman studied and taught at Camberwell College of Art. His work is associated with the wider sculptural studio ceramic movement of the 1960s and the work of ceramicists including Dan Arbeid, Ian Auld, Ruth Duckworth and Gordon Baldwin. However, unlike them, alongside his abstract and figurative sculptural works he made an extensive range of domestic standardware at the Aller Pottery in Somerset, which he established in 1966 with his wife, Julia Newman.

Sim Panaser, July 2020