Alan Caiger-Smith
Alan Caiger-Smith MBE (born 1930) is a British studio potter and writer on pottery.
Life and work
Caiger-Smith was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He studied at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and read history at King's College, Cambridge (1949-1952). He trained in pottery at the Central School of Art & Design in 1954 under Dora Billington.[1]
According to Grove Art, Alan Caiger-Smith established the Aldermaston Pottery in 1955, "a cooperative workshop of about seven potters making functional domestic ware and tiles, as well as individual commissions and one-off pots. By trial and error he revived and perfected two virtually lost techniques: the use of tin glaze and painted pigments on red earthenware clay, and the firing of lustres on to tin glazes."[2] However, in Lustre Pottery, Caiger-Smith refers to earlier revivals of lustre by William de Morgan, Vilmos Zsolnay, Clément Massier and Pilkington's Royal Lancastrian Pottery.[3] He was joined at Aldermaston Pottery by a number of other potters, including Geoffrey Eastop (1921–2014).[4]
Alan Caiger-Smith's book on Tin-Glaze Pottery (1973) covers its history and much of its technique. He co-translated and annotated a detailed contemporary description of the materials and methods of Renaissance maiolica, Cipriano Piccolpasso's I Tre Libre Dell'Arte Del Vasaio (The Three Books of the Potter’s Art) (1980). His history of lustre ware, Lustre Pottery, was published in 1985.
Caiger-Smith was Chairman of the British Crafts Centre (1973–1978) and was awarded the MBE in 1988.[1] He ceased employing assistants in 1993 to concentrate on personal work and in 2006 announced his decision to sell the Aldermaston Pottery.[5]
Bibliography
- Caiger-Smith, Alan, Tin-Glaze Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World: The Tradition of 1000 Years in Maiolica, Faience and Delftware (Faber and Faber, 1973). ISBN 0-571-09349-3.
- Caiger-Smith, Alan, Lustre Pottery: Technique, Tradition and Innovation in Islam and the Western World(Faber and Faber, 1985). ISBN 0-571-13507-2.
- Caiger-Smith, Alan, Pottery, People and Time: A Workshop in Action (Shepton Beauchamp: Richard Dennis, 1995). ISBN 0-903685-39-6.
- Piccolpasso, Cipriano, The Three Books of the Potter's Art (I Tre Libri del Arte Vasaiao) (trans. A. Caiger-Smith and R. Lightbown) (Scolar Press, 1980). ISBN 0-85967-452-5.
See also
- Tin-glazed pottery
- Primavera Gallery in Cambridge
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Watson, Oliver, Studio Pottery, London, Phaidon Press, 1993 ISBN 978-0-7148-2948-7
- ↑
- ↑ Caiger-Smith, Alan, Lustre Pottery, London: Faber & Faber, 1989
- ↑ "Geoffrey Eastop: An artist's life in pots". Newbury Weekly News (UK). 15 January 2015. pp. 44–45.
- ↑ Ceramic Review, 221, September/October 2006, p.17
External links
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