Bowl

This vessel playfully engages with form and volume. The interior becomes exterior as an inverted concave form rises inside the conical bowl. A small opening in the centre of the form maintains its identity as a vessel. The form has an equilibrium which is echoed in the uniformity of the pale blue glaze that is used across all its surfaces. This work was gifted to Tony Birks by Ruth Duckworth.

Duckworth came to England in 1936 as an émigré. She initially studied stone carving and worked as a stone sculptor for nearly a decade. In the early 1950s, following the advice of Lucie Rie she studied ceramics at the Central School of Art and Design. She moved to Chicago in the mid-1960s and here she was commissioned for several large-scale ceramic murals that united her carving and ceramics practices.

Sim Panaser, August 2020