The Grainer Collection: A Life in Craft

In 2008 Annie Carlano of the Mint Museum asked me to write an introduction to a book accompanying a planned exhibition of British ceramics from the collection of Marc and Diane Grainer. I had, of course, heard of the Grainers. As Americans, their commitment to British studio ceramics was unusual. Their arrival in London would cause a flutter in the dovecots, raising the spirits of all the studio ceramicists I knew. The late Carol McNicoll would say – ‘Marc Grainer is here’ or ‘the Grainers are in town’. It was moment to celebrate. A fine example of McNicoll’s work would be bought or there might be a commission. It was for Marc Grainer that Carol designed, made and assembled a remarkable hanging sculpture intended for his office. Resembling a baroque chandelier it was intended the suggest the idea of light. And the Grainers’ sensitive understanding of McNicoll’s work would be duplicated with other artists whose ceramics they collected in quantity – from Alison Britton to Christie Brown, to Steven Dixon, Philip Eglin, Richard Slee, Julian Stair, John Ward, Takeshi Yasuda and many others.

A year after hearing from Annie Carlano, courtesy of the Mint Museum, I found myself staying in the Grainers’ guest wing, connected by a walkway to their steel and glass house designed by the Washington architect Elias Charuhas. It was September in a spacious suburb of Potomac, Maryland, other houses only just glimpsable though the trees. Marc Grainer presented as a quiet philosopher, a true intellectual with a gentle manner. Diane was equally attractive – talkative but also shy. Although she was somewhat ambivalent about the huge scale of their collection, which also encompassed American and British furniture, woodwork, jewellery, metalwork, and textile, there was no doubt that they were a team, both eloquent about the artists they admired. They were deeply involved with the infrastructure of craft in North America, supporting the Renwick Gallery in Washington, and the American Museum of Craft (now the Museum of Art and Design) in New York. And the year I visited they had kindly funded the launch party of the Journal of Modern Craft which I had founded with Glenn Adamson. They could do large and small.

The best collectors are as creative as the best gallerists and the best artists. This was especially true of the Grainers, who had beautiful shelving and cabinets commissioned to show their ceramics in what was in effect a house museum. 

Snaking through the centre of the house was a memorable spiral staircase that made a multiplicity of views of the collection possible. I remember looking down onto a case of John Ward pots, an arrangement that empowered and strengthened each individual piece by Ward. It was a magical interior, not least because of the light coming into the house through its curtain walls of glass, softened by the trees and shrubs outside.

Like a small number of North Americans, including Pat Barnes and John Driscoll, Marc Grainer and his wife had realised that something extraordinary was happening in British ceramics. From 1977 they had paid regular vacation visits to England, buying their first ceramic, a piece by Robert Fournier, at the Oxford Gallery in 1978 and making the first of many visits to Cornwall, gradually meeting local makers including Jason Wason and Breon O’Casey.  From 1985 for fifteen years Marc came to London monthly to develop the British branch of TARP, the innovative customer care service he had founded while still a student at Harvard Law School. On his necessarily lonely weekends his collecting expanded as he visited, inter alia, Contemporary Applied Arts, headed up by the visionary Tatiana Marsden (and subsequently Barrett Marsden and Marsden Woo) and the Crafts Council Gallery as well as galleries outside London.

It was a golden time for British ceramics and the Grainers admired and loved the artists who made the extraordinary work they collected. On my 2009 visit I remember spending a day in Washington DC with Marc. I had plans to visit some of the magnificent museums in the city, not least the National Gallery of Art. Marc had other ideas, explaining he had heard there was a good Walter Keeler exhibition to be seen. I remember the feeling of disappointment as we sought out a show of a potter whose work I knew well. No Leonardo Ginevra de Benci, no Jan van Eyck Annunciation, no Jackson Pollock Lavender Mist on that day.  But when we finally found the Keelers hidden in a basement gallery, I felt a renewed respect for the Grainers. The commitment was absolute. And they always found the best in the field that they had chosen to explore.

Tanya Harrod | Craft Historian and Author