Gordon Baldwin: Objects for a Landscape

Sept. 6, 2012 - PRLog -- The National Centre for Craft & Design is delighted and proud to bring to Sleaford a major exhibition of work by Lincoln born ceramicist Gordon Baldwin.  The exhibition, curated by Tatjana Marsden (Director of Marsden Woo Gallery) has been organised by York Museums Trust and is a celebration of the remarkable career and achievements of Gordon Baldwin over the last 60 years.  

Gordon Baldwin OBE, born in 1932, is regarded as one of the most distinguished living potters in the UK and internationally.  This deserved reputation has been built on his influence as both a maker and a teacher.  With a career spanning over 60 years Gordon’s work demonstrates a shifting and moving in inspiration and style.  

As a young artist in the post war era his work broke new ground as it moved away from the usual traditional functional ceramics of the studio potters of that time to more sculptural forms, vessels that no longer relied on function, drawing influence in part from the resurgent sculptural movement in Britain in the 1950s.  Over the next four decades Gordon’s work took on more abstract influences moving away from darker highly glazed vessels to the more familiar chalky white background of many of his later works which allowed for a greater degree of surface drawing, the ceramic form becoming a canvas for mark making and drawing.

The exhibition explores Baldwin’s influences from music and landscape to 20th century art.  It brings together over 140 works spanning 50 years of creative output, featuring works from the principle phases of his career; works from the 1980s onwards, as this is when he has produced his strongest and a small group of new works.

Gordon has close ties to Lincolnshire; he was educated in Lincoln where he attended the Lincoln School of Art in 1949, before taking a place at the Central School of Art and Design.  Gordon himself went on to teach at several schools and colleges including Goldsmiths, Camberwell and Eton.  Some of the early influences on his work were landscape inspired and indeed he makes a special recollection of a visit to the Lincolnshire coast in 1947 and latterly the Welsh coast at Porth Neigwl

‘Objects for a Landscape’ celebrates not only the achievements of one of the most important British ceramic artists of our time, but also offers a rich and exciting insight into Gordon Baldwin’s incredible career. It also offers a gathering that draws on loans from public and private collections, many of which are seldom seen.

Gordon Baldwin: Objects for a Landscape is a touring exhibition organised by York Museums Trust.  The exhibition is curated by Tatjana Marsden and designed by Martin Smith.  A major publication edited by David Whiting has ben produced by York Museums Trust to support the exhibition.