Joanna Constantinidis née Connell, (12 December 1927 – 1 August 2000) was an English potter and ceramic artist.

Biography

Hand-Built vase by Joanna Constantinidis (YORYM-2004

Constantinidis was born in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

and grew up in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

where she attended Ecclesfield Grammar School between 1939 and 1945 before studying painting at Sheffield Art College until 1949. At Sheffield she was introduced to ceramics and pottery making and in 1951 became a ceramics lecturer at Chelmsford Technical College, later part of the Essex Institute of Higher Education. This position, which she held until her, early, retirement in 1989, allowed Constantinidis to experiment and develop her own style and technical abilities. In time she developed innovative methods of throwing, firing and glazing pots. In the early 1950s Constantinidis exhibited somewhat traditional examples of pottery, inspired by industrial wares and Staffordshire slipware, with the Red Rose Guild and the British Crafts Centre but in the late 1950s, influenced by the works of

Lucie Rie Dame Lucie Rie, (16 March 1902 – 1 April 1995) () was an Austrian-born British studio potter. Life Early years and education Lucie Gomperz was born in Vienna, Lower Austria, Austria-Hungary, the youngest child of Benjamin Gomperz, a Jewis ...

and

Hans Coper Hans Coper (8 April 1920 – 16 June 1981), was an influential German-born British studio potter. His work is often coupled with that of Lucie Rie due to their close association, even though their best known work differs dramatically, with R ...

changed her style. Working at a studio she set up at

Great Baddow Great Baddow is an urban village and civil parish in the Chelmsford borough of Essex, England. It is close to the city of Chelmsford, and, with a population of over 13,000, She developed painstaking methods to produce work that emphasized purity and harmony of both shape and decoration. In the 1970s her pottery became sculptural and her pots were often greatly reworked by cutting and folding after being created on her potters' wheel. In the later decades of her life Constantinidis' produced tall cylinders and bowls based on simple elegant lines. In her last years she created some notable individual pots and a set of porcelain table ware. In early 2000 she suffered a stroke but was able to complete work for a solo exhibition held at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in May that year. As well as the Victoria and Albert Museum, many public collections hold examples of her work including the National Museum of Modern Art in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. In 1978 Constantinidis won a medal of honour at the Premio Faenza international ceramics exhibition and in 1995 a touring retrospective exhibition of her work was organised by the

University of Derby , mottoeng = Experience is the best teacher , established = 1851 – Teacher Training College1992 – gained university status , type = Public , chancellor = William Cavendish, Ear ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Constantinidis, Joanna 1927 births 2000 deaths 20th-century English women artists 20th-century ceramists Academics of Anglia Ruskin University Alumni of Sheffield Hallam University Artists from Sheffield British ceramicists British potters British women ceramicists People educated at Ecclesfield Grammar School Women potters