Alan Caiger-Smith

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(8 February 1930 – 21 February 2020) was a British ceramicist,

studio potter Studio pottery is pottery made by professional and amateur artists or artisans working alone or in small groups, making unique items or short runs. Typically, all stages of manufacture are carried out by the artists themselves.Emmanuel Cooper, ...

and writer on

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

Life and work

Caiger-Smith was born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. He studied at the

Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgra ...

and read history at

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

(1949-1952). He trained in pottery at the Central School of Art & Design in 1954 under

Dora Billington Dora May Billington (1890–1968) was an English teacher of pottery, a writer and a studio potter. Her own work explored the possibilities of painting on pottery. Life and career Dora Billington was born into a family of potters in Stoke-on-Tr ...

. According to Grove Art, Alan Caiger-Smith established the

Aldermaston Pottery Aldermaston Pottery was a pottery located in the Berkshire village of Aldermaston, England. It was founded in 1955 by Alan Caiger-Smith and was known for its tin-glaze pottery and particularly its lustre ware. His first assistant, Geoffrey ...

in 1955, "a cooperative workshop of about seven potters making functional domestic ware and tiles, as well as individual commissions and one-off pots. By trial and error he revived and perfected two virtually lost techniques: the use of tin glaze and painted pigments on red earthenware clay, and the firing of lustres on to tin glazes." However, "virtually lost" is questionable: in his ''Lustre Pottery'', Caiger-Smith himself covers relatively recent revivals of

lustreware Lustreware or lusterware (respectively the spellings for British English and American English) is a type of pottery or porcelain with a Metal, metallic glaze that gives the effect of iridescence. It is produced by metallic Oxide, oxides in an Cer ...

William De Morgan William Frend De Morgan (16 November 1839 – 15 January 1917) was an English potter, tile designer and novelist. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles ...

Vilmos Zsolnay Vilmos Zsolnay (April 19, 1828 in Pécs March 23, 1900 in Pécs) was a Hungarian industrialist and entrepreneur. As the director of the Zsolnay porcelain manufacture he introduced new materials and inventions into the manufacture of pottery an ...

, Clément Massier and Pilkington's Royal Lancastrian Pottery. In particular his researches "reconstructed the medieval Islamic lustreware technique". He was joined at Aldermaston Pottery by a number of other potters, including

Geoffrey Eastop Geoffrey Eastop (16 January 1921 – 25 December 2014) was an English potter. Eastop was born in London, where he studied at the Croydon School of Art and Goldsmiths' College. He also studied at the Academie Ranson in Paris. During World Wa ...

(1921–2014). Alan Caiger-Smith's book on ''Tin-Glaze Pottery'' (1973) covers its history and much of its technique. He co-translated and annotated with R.W. Lightbown a detailed contemporary description of the materials and methods of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

maiolica Maiolica is tin-glazed pottery decorated in colours on a white background. Italian maiolica dating from the Renaissance period is the most renowned. When depicting historical and mythical scenes, these works were known as ''istoriato'' wares ( ...

Cipriano Piccolpasso Cipriano di Michele Piccolpasso (1524 – 21 November 1579) was a member of an Italian patrician family of Bologna that had been settled since the mid-fifteenth century in Castel Durante, which was an important center for the manufacture of maiol ...

's ''I Tre Libre Dell'Arte Del Vasaio'' (''The Three Books of the Potter’s Art'') (1980). His history of lustre ware, ''Lustre Pottery'', was published in 1985. Caiger-Smith was Chairman of the British Crafts Centre (1973–1978) and was awarded the

in 1988. He ceased employing assistants in 1993 to concentrate on personal work and in 2006 announced his decision to sell the Aldermaston Pottery.

Bibliography

*Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''Tin-Glaze Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World: The Tradition of 1000 Years in Maiolica, Faience and Delftware'' (

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...

, 1973). . *Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''Lustre Pottery: Technique, Tradition and Innovation in Islam and the Western World''(Faber and Faber, 1985). . *Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''Pottery, People and Time: A Workshop in Action'' (Shepton Beauchamp: Richard Dennis, 1995). . *Piccolpasso, Cipriano, ''The Three Books of the Potter's Art (I Tre Libri del Arte Vasaiao)'' (trans. A. Caiger-Smith and R. Lightbown) (Scolar Press, 1980). . *Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''Said el Sadr 1909-1986. Potter, Painter, Sculptor, Teacher.'' (ACS Shalford Publications, 2010). *Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''Times and Seasons (I Tempi e le Stagioni)'' (Published 2012 in English and Italian). *Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''English Medieval Mural Paintings'' (Oxford University Press, 1963). *Wettlaufer, George and Nancy Wettlaufer. “England’s Alan Caiger-Smith.” 'Ceramics Monthly' 28, no. 1 (January 1980). *White Jane, ''Alan Caiger-Smith and the Legacy of Aldermaston Pottery', Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2018

References

External links

National Electronic and Video Archive of the Crafts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caiger-Smith, Alan 1930 births 2020 deaths Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design Argentine emigrants to England Argentine people of British descent English potters Members of the Order of the British Empire Aldermaston Writers from Buenos Aires

Life and work

Bibliography

See also

References

External links