Form

This form is an early work by Dan Arbeid. It has a strange presence. The surface has an organic and lichen appearance, however the pin-holed glazes give it a sense of decay. A carved shape in the centre is obscured by a thick pooled glaze.

During the 1960s and 1970s Arbeid’s exhibitions focused on different manipulations of clay including coiling, throwing and slab-building (see 50716 for a thrown example of Arbeid’s work from this period). [1] He rejected the approach of Bernard Leach and his followers, whose work was guided by the ceramic traditions of Chinese Sung and Tang dynasty pots. He was not alone in this departure. He was one of a group of ceramicists connected to the Central School of Arts that were exploring experimental and radical approaches to clay. Others included Gordon Baldwin, Ruth Duckworth and Ian Auld.

Arbeid was a pottery technician at the Central School from 1957 to the mid-1980s and initially worked as a tailor’s cutter in London. He was introduced to ceramics in 1956 when he worked in an industrial ceramic factory in Israel. Birks describes a work made by Arbeid during his time as having, ‘an astonishing radical and modern approach to form’ [2], with surface drawings that referenced artists including Henry Moore and John Piper, demonstrating Arbeid’s early ambitions for his work to diverge from the conventions of studio ceramics.

Sim Panaser, June 2020

[1] Tony Birks, Art of the Modern Potter, (London: Country Life Books, 1976), p. 158.

[2] Tony Birks, ‘Dan Arbeid: A Remembrance’, Ceramics: Art and Perception, 88 (2012), 104-106, (p. 104).