Bottle

This thrown vessel is an early work by Gillian Lowndes and possibly even made when she was a student at the Central School of Arts in the mid-1950s (see also 50794). It belonged to ceramicist and author Tony Birks, who attended Central at the same time as Lowndes. Its tall and slender shape is almost pipe-like and elongated by black vertical markings painted over thin white slip.

Lowndes says it was not until 1960, when she joined a studio with Robin Welch and Kate Watts that she begun to experiment with handbuilding. [1] A handbuilt work in the Sainsbury Centre Collection from the mid-1960s (see 50790) shows the beginnings of a new direction. In 1970 she moved to Nigeria for eighteen months and this experience transformed her approach to ceramics. From the late 1970s onwards, she created bricolage sculptures that entangled, fossilised and fired everyday debris into ‘abstract structures’ [2] which spoke a new and radical ceramic language.

Sim Panaser, August 2020

[1] Fiona Bird, ‘Potting it Together’, The Times, August 21 1969, London.

[2] Lowndes uses the term ‘abstract structures’ to describe her work in, Henry Pim, ‘Uncertain Echoes’, Ceramic Review, 103, (January/February 1987), 10-12, (p. 11).