Mixed laminated clays, dry textured surface in contrasting colours of pale grey, brown, pink, blue and yellow, with natural tears and fissures to the convoluted form
H 46.2cm, W 42.5cm, D 35.8cm
Provenance: The Makepeace Collection
Bonhams, New Bond Street, International Contemporary Ceramics, 24 May 2006, Lot 303
CONDITION: In good stable condition, some small minor points of delamination as a result of the making process, a fine hairline to one point, possibly stabilised.
Available for sale: £4,500
About the artist
Ewen Henderson was born in Staffordshire and after he served his national service in the RAF began to pursue an artist career, starting a foundation course at Goldsmith’s College in 1964. It was here that he first encountered clay and after a year at Goldsmith’s he enrolled at Camberwell School of Art to study ceramics under, amongst others, Hans Coper and Lucy Rie. In contrast to the works of Coper and Rie, Henderson chose to explore the possibilities of hand-building, finding greater dynamic potential in asymmetry. Pushing the boundaries between sculpture and craft, Henderson established an international reputation and became one of Britain's foremost ceramic artists to emerge in the 1960s. His work, characterised by rough, dry surfaces made of mixtures of clay coloured with oxides and stains, continually developed as his vessels became increasingly organic and sculptural. Henderson not only worked in clay but was also consistently producing works on paper, in watercolour, charcoal and collage. His artistic vision encompassed all the mediums he worked in, exploring through works on paper the same concerns of form, colour and texture that preoccupied him with his pots. Drawing was always foundational to his practice, he notes, 'It is not so much that you get ideas from drawings, it's that the action of drawing makes you look intensely: you struggle with understanding form and how to represent it in terms of marks on paper. It makes you contemplate what is underneath the surface.'
Artist's Other Pieces
