Room 138

摘要

It is now thirteen years since Oliver Watson published Studio Pottery, a landmark catalogue detailing the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection of British studio ceramics. At the time the collection had experienced a period of unprecedented growth, some 250 pots having been acquired in the preceding decade. This brought the total number of objects to 753, with nearly 200 individual makers represented. Taking as its starting point the wares of Reginald Wells and other early twentieth century pioneers, the catalogue provided a comprehensive survey of the studio ceramics movement as a whole. But it also offered a celebration of that last and most remarkable decade, the 1980s, with the bold experiments of Alison Britton, Elizabeth Fritsch, Jacqui Poncelet, Jill Crowley and Ewen Henderson featuring heavily Since that time, ceramic practice has developed in a range of interesting and unexpected ways, and it seems timely to reflect upon how the collection has (or has not) come to terms with this progress, as well as to consider its relationship with the other activities of the museum and its partners.