Julian Stair is one of the UK’s leading ceramic artists with an international reputation for his engaging work, produced on both an intimate and monumental scale. After completing a degree in ceramics at Camberwell School of Art in 1978, Stair continued his studies at the Royal College of Art, London, graduating in 1981. Stair has become a leading historian of English studio ceramics, completing a PhD at the Royal College of Art researching the critical origins of English Studio Pottery.

Stair has stated that in his use of ribs and glaze for this early single-fired porcelain bowl, he was trying to move away from his previous very intense surface treatment of clay. The incorporation of glaze within the undulating bands was his first use of this colour. [1]

Lady Sainsbury began to collect Stair’s work from the 1980s, inviting him to the Sainsburys’ home in Smith Square, London, where he encountered their outstanding personal collection of art, including Tang figures, paintings by Francis Bacon and works by Hans Coper and Lucie Rie. The Sainsburys went on to help finance the set-up of his first studio in Brixton, London, with fellow ceramicist Sara Radstone, and continued to support his work. [2]

Katharine Malcolm, July 2020

[1] Interview with the artist, phone call 19/06/20.

[2] Cyril Frankel and James Austin, Modern Pots (Norwich: University of East Anglia, 2000), pp.156-157.