Jennifer Lee: Ten Pots

JENNIFER LEE TEN POTS

JL-0098

JENNIFER LEE TEN POTS 6 - 29 October 2021

Jennifer Lee will be in the gallery on Saturday, 16 October from 11am to 4pm.

15 Royal Arcade, 28 Old Bond Street, London, W1S 4SP www.ehc.art | mail@ehc.art | +44 (0) 207 491 1706

JL-0110

Silence and slow time

My day begins with pots by Jennifer Lee. These are the first things I see. Looking at them becomes a meditation. A reminder of the prayers with which our days began, as school children in the 1950s. A morning raga.

Looking without thinking. Quietly absorbing the presence of Lee’s hand-built vessels. Their surfaces, shadows and their silhouettes. The spaces between them. I recollect myself. Racing thoughts are slowed, stilled. I come into the present.

Six pots collected over a decade or so. Not so much a collection. More a shelf or two.

Collections take time to bring into being. Time too is the subject and the substance of Lee’s art.

This exhibition’s title, Ten Pots, is a misnomer. The exhibition does indeed include ten new hand-built pots. It also includes seven new thrown pots, two new ceramic slabs, and at least five drawings. That’s quite a haul, given that a major pot can take a month or more to build, burnish and fire.

Describing the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 1984, Robert Hughes wrote of Howard Hodgkin: Not since…the Biennale twenty years ago has a show by a single painter so hogged the attention of visitors or looked so effortlessly superior to everything else on view by living artists.1 I hope to describe why I feel the same way about Jennifer Lee. Why does each pot yield such a rich reward? Is it the nature of the materials? The observed creative process? Something else?

These pots are classical. They are balanced, calm, and ordered. They represent an exemplary standard within a traditional and long-established form or style.2 Together, they form a Greek chorus, a Noh play, a ballet.

Dance is a good allusion. As we recollect ourselves in front of a single vessel, we join the artist as she pinches out the base, and then begins the painstaking rolling and flattening, winding ascent, out and up, and up again, until we reach what might be called the shoulder of the pot.

1 Robert Hughes, ‘Gliding Over a Dying Reef: The Venice Biennale’ [review of exh.], Time, 2 July 1984, pp. 76-7.

2 Oxford English Dictionary, definition of ‘classical’.

The break at this point can be so subtle as to be almost imperceptible, or so sudden as to scare. It is good to pause here for a moment, before the eye and heart sweep on again and up to the pot’s opening, its rim or shelf, modelled or sliced, tilted or flat.

These pots are romantic. They tell the story of their making, layer by layer, colour upon colour, storm cloud and lightning flash, sunset and dawn. The tallest of them, Dark, umber, olive, bronze haloed rings, tilted (JL-0098) is also amongst the darkest, its silhouette perfectly balanced. Drama and poetry contained in a narrow band between shoulder and neck. End of day, or a beginning. A black or red-figure battle scene on an antique vase.

These pots are poetic. The most exotic of them, Slate blue, dark base, haloed bands, tilted shelf (JL-0097), shocked me when first I saw it. Everything about it was thrilling. A Venetian coronation. Titian of course, Whistler maybe? The dark blue and darker gold like rustling silk by Mariano Fortuny.

These pots are a delight. The thrown ones, made in Japan, especially so. I was unsure to begin with where these swirling departures from the past would take me. Now I am certain. They are delicious, introducing playfulness to this serious artist’s oeuvre. The drawings too, now with touches of colour, are reminders that Lee is an explorer, an observer, sailing in the imagination with Darwin on the Beagle, recording her discoveries in order to understand them. Sharing them with us, that we may understand too.

These pots are inexhaustible. Every visit to a Lee pot is a fresh encounter. There is something new to be learnt, a new association to be found, a new angle, a new aspect to be enjoyed. These pots are life enhancing.

These pots are timeless. They belong to any age. They belong to today and tomorrow.

We started with Keats. With his great Ode on a Grecian Urn: Thou foster-child of silence and slow time Let us end with Keats too, for of which of these new pots could it not be said: Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: I do not want any of these pots.

I want them all.

Robin Vousden

Gertrud Vasegaard Bowl with blue and white vertical strokes, 1996 stoneware, 11.5 x 9 cm (GV-0021)

JL-0101

Ode on a Grecian Urn Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

John Keats (1795-1821)

JL-0101

JL-0098

From left to right: JL-0096, JL-0099, JL-0102

From left to right: JL-0110, JL-0102

JL-0097

JL-0095

JL-0095

JL-0111

JL-0099

JL-0096

JL-0095

JL-0100

JL-0119

JL-0118

From left to right: JL-0109, JL-0108, JL-0103

From left to right: JL-0105, JL-0106, JL-0104, JL-0107

JL-0115

JL-0116

JL-0114

JL-0112

JL-0113

Jennifer Lee (b.1956) After studying ceramics and tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art from 1975-79, Lee continued her studies of ceramics at the Royal College of Art in London from 1980-83. Her pots are hand built and are distinguished by her unique method of colouring them by mixing metallic oxides into the clay before making.

She exhibits her work internationally, and had a major solo exhibition at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge in 2019.

Over the past 40 years, Lee has won numerous awards, including the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in 2018, and she was awarded an OBE in Her Majesty the Queen’s New Year Honours list 2021 for her services to ceramics.

Solo Exhibitions Since 2012 2019

2018

2017 2016

2015

2013

2012

Jennifer Lee: the potter’s space, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK Jennifer Lee: Works from a Private Collection, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London, UK Jennifer Lee: A personal selection, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK Jennifer Lee, Sokyo Gallery, Kyoto, Japan Jennifer Lee - Ceramics and Drawings, Gallery LVS, Seoul, South Korea Jennifer Lee, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London, UK Jennifer Lee - Ceramics made in Shigaraki and London, Sokyo Gallery, Kyoto, Japan Jennifer Lee, Tada no yume deshou ka, The Institute of Ceramic Studies Gallery, Shigaraki, Japan Jennifer Lee, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London, UK Jennifer Lee, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions Since 2009 2020

2019

2018

2017

2014

2009

House of Craft, Korean Craft Museum, Cheongju, South Korea Started it in England: Leach and Hamada, in Two Ways, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Mashiko, Japan Clay and Abstraction: When Memories become Form, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Mashiko, Japan Exchange and Experimentation - Towards a New Generation of Ceramic Art, The Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan Salisbury Collection of Studio Ceramics, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK Materiality: Masterworks from The Miller Ceramic Art Collection, Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, Alfred, USA Modernity & Elegance: Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and Jennifer Lee, The Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo, Japan Loewe Craft Prize 2018, Design Museum, London, UK Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Ceramics, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Ceramics, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA Toward a DESIGN MUSEUM JAPAN, 21_21 Design Sight, Tokyo, Japan British Ceramics from Bernard Leach to New Generation, The Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan U-Tsu-Wa, 21_21 Design Sight, The Miyake Issey Foundation, Tokyo, Japan

Further biographical information and a full list of Lee’s exhibitions are available on our website, www.ehc.art

Public Collections Lee’s work is represented in Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Aberdeen, UK Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, New York, USA Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK British Museum, London, UK Buckinghamshire County Museum, Aylesbury, UK Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA CellMark, Gothenburg, Sweden Contemporary Art Society, London, UK Crafts Council Collection, London, UK Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, USA Derek Williams Trust, Wales, UK Europäisches Kunsthandwerk Landesgewerbeamt, Stuttgart, Germany Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto, Canada Glasgow Museum and Art Galleries, Glasgow, UK Grassi Museum of Applied Arts, Leipzig, Germany Hawkes Bay Art Gallery and Museum, Napier, New Zealand Hove Museum and Art Gallery, Hove, UK Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, Coburg, Germany Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds, UK Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, USA LongHouse Reserve Collection, New York, USA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Mashiko, Japan Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, UK Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, USA Musée Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland Musée Bellerive, Zurich, Switzerland Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Wales, UK Norwich Castle Museum, Norwich, UK Peters Foundation, London, UK Peter Siemssen Foundation for Ceramic Art, Germany Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA Röhsska Museet, Gothenburg, Sweden Royal Museum, Edinburgh, UK Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, USA Scottish Collection, SDA, Edinburgh, UK Scripps College, Claremont, USA Thamesdown Collection, Museum and Art Gallery, Swindon, UK The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA The Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo, Japan The Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya, Japan Verkehr Museum, Shizuoka, Japan Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

JL-0117

Speckled, fractionated sand, rust flashing, 2020

Shigaraki Red, dark iron rim, 2021

hand-built coloured stoneware

hand-built coloured stoneware

11.2 x 20 cm

9.1 x 16.2 x 16 cm

JL-0095

JL-0100

Shigaraki Red, dark, red tilted shelf, 2021

Speckled, fractionated stone, charred base, 2021

hand-built coloured stoneware

hand-built coloured stoneware

21.5 x 11.5 x 10.9 cm

13.3 x 10.4 x 10.2 cm

JL-0096

JL-0101

Slate blue, dark base, haloed bands, tilted shelf, 2020

Shigaraki Red, graded iron, red tilted shelf, 2021

hand-built coloured stoneware

hand-built coloured stoneware

25.1 x 16.3 x 15.9 cm

14.8 x 9.9 x 9.5 cm

JL-0097

JL-0102

Dark, umber, olive, bronze haloed rings, tilted, 2020

Pale, speckled olive traces, 2021

hand-built coloured stoneware

hand-built coloured stoneware

26.9 x 16.9 x 15.8 cm

25.7 x 16.7 x 16.5 cm

JL-0098

JL-0110

Shigaraki Red, dark iron, flashed, red tilted shelf, 2021

Pale, olive and rust rings, tilted shelf, 2021

hand-built coloured stoneware

hand-built coloured stoneware

15.3 x 10.9 x 10.3 cm

22.6 x 13.3 x 12.8 cm

JL-0099

JL-0111

Shigaraki 42-14, 2014

Mashiko 18-19, 2019

thrown coloured stoneware

thrown coloured stoneware

5.9 x 5.3 cm

5.8 x 5.5 cm

JL-0103

JL-0108

Shigaraki 43-14, 2014

Mashiko 75-19, 2019

thrown coloured stoneware

thrown coloured stoneware

5.8 x 5.1 cm

6.7 x 5.6 cm

JL-0104

JL-0109

Mashiko 28-19, 2019

JL918, 2021

thrown coloured stoneware

pencil on paper

5.4 x 5.6 cm

40.1 x 31.2 cm (unframed)

JL-0105

JL-0112

Shigaraki 36-15, 2015

JL916, 2021

thrown coloured stoneware

pencil on paper

6.4 x 6 cm

50.1 x 39.4 cm (unframed)

JL-0106

JL-0113

Mashiko 16-19, 2019

JL915, 2021

thrown coloured stoneware

pencil on paper

6 x 6 cm

56.6 x 45 cm (unframed)

JL-0107

JL-0114

Exhibited in Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, 2020

Shigaraki Pale, 2021 pencil on paper 44.2 x 51 cm (unframed) JL-0115

Shigaraki Pale, 2020 pencil on paper 46 x 55.2 cm (unframed) JL-0116

JL920, 2021 pencil on paper 35.3 x 28.4 cm JL-0117

Mashiko Sakura, burnt traces, 2019 hand-built coloured stoneware 20.2 x 30.1 x 1 cm JL-0118

Olive, haloed umber trace, 2016 hand-built coloured stoneware 20.5 x 30.2 x 1 cm JL-0119

Photography by Stuart Burford Printed by WKG Print Copyright Erskine, Hall & Coe Ltd www.ehc.art