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.

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. [1]

The artist describes Lady Sainsbury as an intuitive collector:

‘She responded visually to materials, rather than ideas. They weren’t collecting for the sake of fashion, they bought what they genuinely liked – it was about the object itself…this is why their collection has a great strength to it and continuity, an identity, an independent stance. The Sainsburys were fantastically important to me and other potters. There was a great generosity about them, not just through their financial support to artists, but in their spirit.’ [2]

Katharine Malcolm, June 2020

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

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