This porcelain teapot is part of a body of work spanning a 10-year period, when Julian Stair began placing more emphasis on form over surface treatment in his work. Stair began producing thrown tableware as a result of an increasing interest in the philosophy of engaging with pots, ensuring the practice of the everyday remains important:

‘I think the experience of the tactile, the haptic, is so significant to our understanding of the world, and is so underused in the world of art. When we appreciate objects – touch them – hold them in our hand – somehow, it’s a material reinforcement of our physical selves. I’m really interested in the idea of how we negotiate our way through life physically, as well as intellectually.’ [1]

The teapot has a clear glaze and a Japanese wisteria handle, which has been traditionally used to make handles over centuries. Stair describes some of the influences that led to this new development in his work:

‘I came to the inevitable prospect that it wasn’t really enough to make pots that you looked at or may even picked up…but pots that could actually be used. I had started to have exhibitions and some public collections who had bought work…but I just couldn’t quite square what I was doing with what I felt I should be doing.

I can’t stress enough how unfashionable it was to make pottery then…that was the dominant view of the day…views were so narrow. I was trying to negotiate a way. I started to look more to Europe, to people such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, who came out of the European Modernist tradition…so in the mid to late 1980s I started to make porcelain tableware. It was so far removed from what everyone else was doing…and people were responsive, and that was really interesting.’ [2]

In hindsight Stair feels that artists such as himself and Joanna Constantinidis began a revival in throwing and using porcelain in the UK, that continued with Rupert Spira and Edmund De Waal. [3]

Katharine Malcolm, September 2020

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