Elizabeth Fritsch | Skytime III, 2012

Stoneware, hand painted slips, geometric design in black and white on a mottled blue ground

H 45cm, W 28cm, D 8cm

PROVENANCE: Private Collection, London. Acquired from Adrian Sassoon Gallery, 2014.

Available for Sale: Price on Request

About the artist

Elizabeth Fritsch is widely regarded as one of the UK’s leading ceramic artists. Her hand-built forms often distort the perception of three-dimensional space using techniques such as foreshortening to create the illusion of depth. This manipulation is further emphasised when combined with her characteristic painterly surfaces of rhythmic geometric patterns. This subversion of space elevates her vessels from their superficially functional character, giving it a metaphysical aspect, that Fritch refers to as a ‘surreal function.’

A range of influences have informed Fritsch’s work over her long career, but none more important than her passion for music, having initially trained as a classical musician. Her visual language is a personal translation of musical concerns such as melody, harmony and rhythm, whilst her grouping of her works energise the individual pieces through their juxtapositions. ‘The spaces between pots assembled in groups are to me more lively and musical than any of the spatial relationships which may be incorporated in a single piece.’

Following her studies under luminaries Hans Coper, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Lucie Rie at the Royal College of Art (1968–71), she emerged as a leader of the ‘New Ceramics’ movement in the 1980s and 90s, challenging conventions of studio pottery.

Fritsch’s work is hand built using flattened ribbons of clay joined together by pinching. They are then painted with many layers of slip and fired many times to create the desired qualities. Painted layers are sanded to allow underlying colours to interact with those above, creating a matt fresco-like appearance.

In 1995 Elizabeth Fritsch was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Royal College of Art and was awarded a CBE the same year. Her work is represented in many public and private international collections. In March 2025, a major survey exhibition of her work Elizabeth Fritsch: Otherworldly Vessels, opened at The Hepworth Wakefield. This seminal retrospective spans over 100 works—saved largely from her private collection.