Lecture by Tanya Harrod: Clay Radicals: Gordon Baldwin and his circle.

• Lectures & Discussions
• Exhibition

The 1960s and 1970s saw areas of British ceramics attempted to create a relationship with advanced sculpture while also maintaining a ceramic identity. Gordon Baldwin was a pioneer, making his astonishing totemic piece Standing Form in 1961. Later, his Painting in the Form of a Dish of the mid 1970s revealed an ambition to unite painting and ceramic through systems of abstract mark making. Nonetheless, Baldwin never entirely abandoned the idea of a container – the form gave structure like the 17 syllables of a haiku. Baldwin and his circle, mostly coming out of London’s Central School of Art and Design, were clay radicals whose work has only recently found an art world audience.