Private to public

摘要

The loan of the Anthony Shaw Collection was crucial in York Museums Trust's decision to make the city a national centre for the study of British studio ceramics. In addition to the famous Milner-White Collection, it had already been bequeathed collector Bill Ismay's several thousand pots and a large group of pieces from the gallery owner Henry Rothschild. York seemed the obvious place to Anthony Shaw, looking for a new home after exhibiting the collection for a decade in his west London house. Apart from being too small to show the breadth of work (by this stage over 800 objects, by well over 50 artists), the trust he established in 2002 decided that the sale of the house would give the collection much needed financial stability. 'Feeling we needed to show to a wider audience,' Shaw says, 'we thought we should tie up with a public institution.'