Donald Chisholm Towner (born

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...

, East Sussex, England, 1903; died London 1985) was a collector and historian of British ceramics and painter. He is noted for his championship of

creamware Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as '' faïence fine'', in the Netherlands as ''Engels porselein'', and in Italy as ''terraglia inglese''.Osborne, 140 It was created about 175 ...

and his ground-breaking studies of this ceramic type in particular.Rachel Conroy, “‘The most lovely of all ceramics’: the creamware sketches of Donald C Towner at Temple Newsam, Leeds,” in ''English Ceramic Circle Transactions'' Volume 31, 2020, pp. 213-227. ECC, 2021

Early life

Donald Towner was born in Eastbourne in 1903, the youngest of three boys. His father William was a teacher and amateur artist who inspired his interest in nature and art. Donald's great-uncle, John Chisolm Towner, enabled through a legacy the founding of the

Towner Art Gallery Towner Art Gallery is located in Eastbourne, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. It hosts one of the most significant public art collections in the South of England and draws over 100,000 visitors a year. It was described by ITV News a ...

in Eastbourne. Donald Towner went to school as a boarder in 1915 at Southdown College, Willingdon and the attended Eastbourne Municipal School, where he first met

Eric Ravilious Eric William Ravilious (22 July 1903 – 2 September 1942) was a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver. He grew up in Sussex, and is particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs and other English landsca ...

, later gaining a scholarship to the Eastbourne School of Art with Ravilious in 1920. He also attended life drawing classes at

Brighton School of Art Founded as the Brighton School of Art in 1859, the University of Brighton School of Art and Media is an organisational part of the University of Brighton, with courses in the creative arts, visual communication, media, craft and fashion and textil ...

. Both Towner and Ravilious received further scholarships in 1923 to study at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

in London, graduating with a Diploma in 1926.

Early career as an artist

After graduation from the Royal College of Art, Towner-based himself in London where he first took a studio in

Mornington Crescent Mornington Crescent is a terraced street in Camden Town, Camden, London, England. It was built in the 1820s, on a greenfield site just to the north of central London. Many of the houses were subdivided into flats during the Victorian era, an ...

. He then moved to Holly Hill in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

in 1927 with his mother, who had sold the family home in Eastbourne and bought a house there. He rented a studio nearby and stayed at Holly Hill for ten years before moving to 8

Church Row, Hampstead Church Row is a residential street in Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. Many of the properties are listed on the National Heritage List for England. The street runs from Frognal in the west to Heath Street in the east. St John-at-Hampste ...

in 1937, a terrace house dating to the early eighteenth century. It was at Church Row that Towner first came to appreciate antiques and developed his love for British pottery. His first one-man exhibition was held at the Leicester Galleries, Leicester Square, London in 1938.

Second World War

Towner spent the war years between 1939 and 1945 in the South Downs where he combined agricultural work with commissions for paintings from Bibby, an animal feed company and local farmers. In 1943 he took charge of the Art School at Christ's Hospital, Horsham where he stayed until the end of the war. Towner painted mainly in oil, using watercolour for sketches.Rachel Conroy, “‘The most lovely of all ceramics’: the creamware sketches of Donald C Towner at Temple Newsam, Leeds,” in ''English Ceramic Circle Transactions'' Volume 31, 2020, p. 214. ECC, 2021 He is perhaps best known for his paintings of buildings and street scenes, but he also painted nature in an around the South Downs where he grew up and spent the war years, as well as country houses in the region and a few portrait paintings. Several representative works are to be found in UK public collections.

Beginnings as a collector

Towner's interest in collecting ceramics is thought to have started in earnest once he returned to his home at 8 Church Row, Hampstead after the war. A next-door neighbour was Egan Mew, a noted collector and writer of the time and it is possible he guided Towner's early interests. Towner also knew Lord Shelburne, a collector of British and European ceramics whose home at Hinton Ampner he painted a number of times in the 1930s.

Ceramic historian

Donald Towner is today chiefly remembered as an historian of ceramics and in particular for his championship of creamware and his ground-breaking studies of this ceramic type. It has been noted that ‘before Donald Towner there was little or no collective use of the term creamware’. His first book, ''English Cream-Coloured Earthenware'', published in 1957, was the first study devoted to the subject. This was later substantially revised as ''Creamware'' in 1978. In 1963 he published ''The Leeds Pottery'', an important study of Leeds-produced creamware. Scholars have since gone on to develop his ideas and sometimes challenge his conclusions whilst considerable progress has been made in identifying individual factory output or even individual potters. However, he remains the acknowledged authority of his day. In 1947 he was elected a member of the English Ceramic Circle, a body devoted to the research of ceramic history (founded in 1927 as the English Porcelain Circle and renamed in 1931), and was for many years a Vice President of the London-based organisation. In 1977 he produced a catalogue in celebration of the ECC's Golden Jubilee together with Robert Charleston, formerly keeper of ceramics at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Donald Towner continued to paint, exhibit and teach art throughout his life. In 1979 he published a memoir entitled ''Recollections of a Landscape Painter & Pottery Collector: an Autobiography''.''Recollections of a Landscape Painter & Pottery Collector: an Autobiography''. New York, Born-Hawes Publishing Limited, 1979. He died in 1985.

Bibliography: Works by Donald Towner

''English Cream-Coloured Earthenware'', London, Faber & Faber, 1957 ''Creamware'', London, Faber & Faber, 1978. (A fully revised edition of Towner 1957.) ''The Leeds Pottery'', London, Cory, Adams & Mackay 1963. (With R J Charleston) ''English Ceramics, 1580-1830: A commemorative catalogue to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the English Ceramic Circle, 1927-1977''. London, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1977.

References

# 1903 births 1985 deaths People from Eastbourne English art historians 20th-century English painters