0:00:08 > 0:00:12This is a film about people who make pots.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16Big pots.
0:00:16 > 0:00:18Little pots.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20Cool pots.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22Honest pots.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26Even pots that don't look like pots at all.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31All of them crafted by hand.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36One person making one pot.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40This was once how all pots were made.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42But then came the factories.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47The Industrial Revolution
0:00:47 > 0:00:50had made Britain the richest nation on the planet.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54But the strength of these factories was also a weakness.
0:00:55 > 0:01:00Everything coming off the production line looked the same.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05Something had been lost,
0:01:05 > 0:01:09and that was the artisan potter, and the hand-made pot.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17So from the end of the 19th century, a fight-back began.
0:01:17 > 0:01:22Not by politicians or reformers, but by potters.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27They became known as studio potters,
0:01:27 > 0:01:30men and women who made pots
0:01:30 > 0:01:34that returned to the values that ran deep through the British psyche.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37Craftsmanship and tradition.
0:01:37 > 0:01:42Imagination and ingenuity.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45It's the thrill of creation.
0:01:45 > 0:01:47This came from somebody's hands,
0:01:47 > 0:01:50and it ended that way because they wanted it to end that way.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54And why did they want it? Because they thought it looked good.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56They thought it had life.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00By placing their work at the heart of the British home,
0:02:00 > 0:02:03the studio potters were fighting for more than art.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07They were fighting for the nation's soul.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11If your heart doesn't get joy in making,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15how do you expect people who use the things that you make
0:02:15 > 0:02:17to have their hearts touched?
0:02:19 > 0:02:21The story of ceramics in Britain in the 20th century
0:02:21 > 0:02:23is utterly compelling.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27It's a story about intimacy, and national identity.
0:02:28 > 0:02:30It's also a story of taste,
0:02:30 > 0:02:32of how British studio pottery
0:02:32 > 0:02:35would swing between revitalising the traditional
0:02:35 > 0:02:39and a search for the new.
0:02:39 > 0:02:44Craft was this sort of weird dalliance for an artist.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46"You're interested in craft? How very interesting."
0:02:46 > 0:02:49"That's dead, isn't it? Craft's dead, I believe."
0:03:05 > 0:03:07Many of the potteries
0:03:07 > 0:03:10of Stoke-on-Trent are deserted these days.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15But in the 19th century, they were vast factories,
0:03:15 > 0:03:20churning out cups, plates and pots to fill British homes.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24Pottery workers were proud of their products,
0:03:24 > 0:03:27which required some flair and creativity.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33But the dominance of Stoke-on-Trent and its factories
0:03:33 > 0:03:38meant pottery as a great artisan craft had mostly disappeared.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45In the 1860s, a handful of determined young artists
0:03:45 > 0:03:47decided they'd had enough.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51Spearheaded by William Morris,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54it became known as the Arts and Crafts Movement,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57dedicated to reviving traditional craftsmanship.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01And in its ranks it had a potter.
0:04:01 > 0:04:06An enterprising young man named William De Morgan.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10William Morris and William De Morgan were tremendous friends
0:04:10 > 0:04:13when they were very young men, living in Bloomsbury,
0:04:13 > 0:04:15quite close to each other,
0:04:15 > 0:04:18and both enthused with the idea
0:04:18 > 0:04:22of discovering lost skills in hand-making.
0:04:22 > 0:04:26Morris went on to experiment with all sort of crafts.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29But De Morgan was a bit more specific.
0:04:29 > 0:04:34He was really concentrated on lost techniques in pottery.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40De Morgan had trained at the Royal Academy schools,
0:04:40 > 0:04:42but found them too old-fashioned.
0:04:42 > 0:04:46In William Morris, he discovered a kindred spirit.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49He worked for him until 1872,
0:04:49 > 0:04:53when he founded his own pottery studio in Chelsea.
0:04:54 > 0:05:00His great passion was for Italian Renaissance and Persian designs,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03but he also possessed a remarkably vivid imagination.
0:05:05 > 0:05:10Inhabited by fantastical creatures, his pottery was also very English.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14This wasn't ceramics from a dull production line.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17This was art.
0:05:22 > 0:05:28De Morgan was a great enthusiast for this sort of elaborate form
0:05:28 > 0:05:32of leaves, fronds, flowers and creatures.
0:05:32 > 0:05:37And this, I think, was more of an English thing than a foreign thing.
0:05:37 > 0:05:42He somehow managed to fuse this love of Eastern decoration
0:05:42 > 0:05:47with this very English, Victorian sense of rather whimsical humour
0:05:47 > 0:05:51that you get in, say, Alice In Wonderland.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Lewis Carroll was a great admirer, not surprisingly,
0:05:54 > 0:05:56of De Morgan's wonderful pots.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00And beautiful as they are, they are fantastical creatures,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04and somehow wonderfully Victorian.
0:06:06 > 0:06:11De Morgan's works can still produce a sense of wonderment,
0:06:11 > 0:06:13especially in a modern-day potter.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16Well, this is the first time
0:06:16 > 0:06:19I've had a William De Morgan pot in my hands,
0:06:19 > 0:06:23and it's a wonderful moment for a potter.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26It's extraordinary. It's so light.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31It's a beautifully, beautifully balanced, lyrical kind of object.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35But, and this is extraordinary, this is lustreware,
0:06:35 > 0:06:39this is a pot where every single bit of shimmering iridescence,
0:06:39 > 0:06:41all the way round it,
0:06:41 > 0:06:45is a different kind of metal oxide that's been applied in a wash,
0:06:45 > 0:06:48and each time that's been done, it's had to go through the kiln again.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52So that there are four or five different firings
0:06:52 > 0:06:54that have created this pot.
0:06:54 > 0:06:56But it's un-warped, it's intact,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00but beyond that, it's doing something quite extraordinary.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04He's telling a story, but it's a simple story.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08What he's telling is here, a small deer, in foliage,
0:07:08 > 0:07:12just about to take flight. Hesitancy, a moment.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15You can almost feel the breeze in this wood,
0:07:15 > 0:07:21and so what this is doing is making the pot as a lyrical poem.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23It's a great moment.
0:07:25 > 0:07:31Today, a first rate De Morgan pot would fetch up to £100,000.
0:07:37 > 0:07:38But in his lifetime,
0:07:38 > 0:07:41his own enthusiasm was not shared by the public.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49He achieved these enormously skilful effects.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Maybe they didn't fit the taste.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56People were looking for something else.
0:07:56 > 0:07:57They didn't want history,
0:07:57 > 0:08:01they didn't want something which was too rooted in historical shape.
0:08:01 > 0:08:06They wanted something which was now becoming more progressive.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11But William De Morgan had achieved more with his pots
0:08:11 > 0:08:14than he would realise.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17They played a key role in establishing British ceramics
0:08:17 > 0:08:21as more than just manufacture, but as an art form.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28And if money was no object,
0:08:28 > 0:08:32then there was no end to what an art potter could achieve.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Down in the West Country, a maverick nobleman,
0:08:36 > 0:08:40aided by his loyal gardener, would show precisely that.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45The magical pots known as Elton Ware reveal their maker
0:08:45 > 0:08:48as a forgotten genius of British studio pottery.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56In 1868, Edmund Elton married his cousin Agnes
0:08:56 > 0:08:58and inherited the family's ancestral home,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01Clevedon Court, outside Bristol.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Wealthy, and with time on his hands,
0:09:05 > 0:09:09he could've chosen idleness over enterprise.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12Instead, he taught himself to make pots.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18He started off putting pots in the kitchen oven,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21and the cook used to be amused.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23He would come in in the evening once the oven
0:09:23 > 0:09:27had stopped being used for food, and would load up the oven with pots.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29And he would give her some of the pots.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32Well, that didn't go on for all that long,
0:09:32 > 0:09:36because after a while he built a small kiln in the garden.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40He started off with himself and two boot boys,
0:09:40 > 0:09:44so that he had two boys from the village,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48and the elder of the two, George Masters,
0:09:48 > 0:09:51became his absolute right-hand man.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57There's a very nice piece in the Clevedon Mercury
0:09:57 > 0:09:59in which Sir Edmund is saying,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02if Masters was to go, the whole concern would collapse.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05He was very hunchbacked,
0:10:05 > 0:10:08but clearly he was immensely talented.
0:10:08 > 0:10:14And Sir Edmund and George Masters became tremendous friends,
0:10:14 > 0:10:15and colleagues.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21They made an unlikely duo.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24George Masters had been Sir Edmund's head gardener,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27but he was now throwing pots,
0:10:27 > 0:10:31which left Sir Edmund with time to concentrate on decoration.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37Sir Edmund became a manic experimenter.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39He developed highly sophisticated glazes,
0:10:39 > 0:10:41often using gold and platinum.
0:10:41 > 0:10:45They looked like nothing before, or since.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47The actual work that he was producing
0:10:47 > 0:10:49draws on some of the same sources
0:10:49 > 0:10:53that other artist potters were producing.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57But his ceramics are highly individual,
0:10:57 > 0:10:59and the surfaces are almost unique
0:10:59 > 0:11:03in terms of their use of crackled lustre glazes.
0:11:03 > 0:11:07Quite extraordinary, ethereal pots.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12One of the major distinguishing characteristics of Elton Ware
0:11:12 > 0:11:14are these glorious, jewel-like colours.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17They're sort of peacock colours.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20He clearly had a really good eye for colour,
0:11:20 > 0:11:22and mixed them very creatively.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25But this very high gloss, and, in fact,
0:11:25 > 0:11:28if you can see on this one...
0:11:28 > 0:11:32this wonderful peacock bluey-green,
0:11:32 > 0:11:36and the floriated decoration is very pretty in this green,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40and then the great splodge of gold at the top.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43The colours are absolutely marvellous,
0:11:43 > 0:11:45with this very, very high gloss.
0:11:45 > 0:11:47And once you know it, it's unmistakeable.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55Elton Ware received some commercial success,
0:11:55 > 0:11:58attracting buyers in Europe and America.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00But for much of his lifetime,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03Sir Edmund's talents went largely unrecognised.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08He died in 1920,
0:12:08 > 0:12:12followed within a year by the ever-faithful George Masters.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18Between them, they had produced a staggering amount of pots.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26I met somebody only the other day
0:12:26 > 0:12:30who said that his father was employed to break up
0:12:30 > 0:12:34the enormous surplus still sitting in all the outhouses in the 1950s,
0:12:34 > 0:12:38to form a foundation for the pigsties my uncle was then building.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45Every cupboard, every bit of storage space, is stuffed with it.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49Sir Edmund Elton, like William De Morgan,
0:12:49 > 0:12:53offered an alternative to the industrial production line.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57Others also made their mark,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00such as the Martin Brothers of Southall,
0:13:00 > 0:13:03whose highly decorated wares showed a passion for the Gothic
0:13:03 > 0:13:07and a dark humour that has always been a part of the British psyche.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18But taste is a fickle mistress.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21In the years following the First World War,
0:13:21 > 0:13:24the Victorian fashion for the grotesque and the ornate
0:13:24 > 0:13:27seemed dated and fussy.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39As Britain struggled to recover from the trauma of war,
0:13:39 > 0:13:42such frivolity appeared to belong to a long-lost era.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49Life had gained a new moral purpose.
0:13:49 > 0:13:51And a new generation of young artists
0:13:51 > 0:13:54sought an authenticity to their work
0:13:54 > 0:13:57that the frippery of the Victorian age seemed to lack.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08The fashion was now for pots that were timeless and useful.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16And what was needed was someone who would revolutionise British pottery,
0:14:16 > 0:14:21by producing handmade pots that were both attractive and practical.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25Someone who would put the handmade pot
0:14:25 > 0:14:27into the ordinary British kitchen.
0:14:30 > 0:14:35Bernard Leach would become not only Britain's most famous potter,
0:14:35 > 0:14:38but one of the nation's leading artists.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42To clay, what Henry Moore was to stone.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49But Bernard Leach's revolution in British pottery began
0:14:49 > 0:14:52not within these shores, but on the other side of the world.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58I was born of English parents in China, and educated in England.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01By 21, I had heard a good deal about Japan,
0:15:01 > 0:15:05and finally decided to go back to the Far East to find out,
0:15:05 > 0:15:07if I could, something of its meaning,
0:15:07 > 0:15:09and its different art and life.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15For Leach, Japan offered an exciting vision of a society
0:15:15 > 0:15:19untainted by the evils of industrialisation.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25I came to believe that we can relearn from the East
0:15:25 > 0:15:28much that we lost in the Industrial Revolution.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32For the machine leaves out the heart of labour,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35feeling, imagination and directness of control.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40And I found that the craftsman is almost the only kind of worker left
0:15:40 > 0:15:43employing heart, hand and head in balance.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Leach fell in with a group of young artists and intellectuals.
0:15:53 > 0:15:57One of their pastimes was decorating and firing ceramic pots,
0:15:57 > 0:16:00using a technique known as raku.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05The evening that Leach joined in would change the course of his life.
0:16:05 > 0:16:10There was a portable kiln with technicians available,
0:16:10 > 0:16:12pots already formed,
0:16:12 > 0:16:17on which these writers and actors and poets were invited to
0:16:17 > 0:16:22draw a design. The technicians would then glaze them,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26the pot would be fired in the kiln as the party proceeded,
0:16:26 > 0:16:27and 30 minutes later,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30it would be taken out of the kiln, and there was this pot.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33Leach writes in his memoirs how totally amazed he was
0:16:33 > 0:16:35by seeing how something,
0:16:35 > 0:16:39the sketch he had done on this pot that was given him,
0:16:39 > 0:16:42was transformed into this extraordinary object
0:16:42 > 0:16:44that came out of the kiln red hot,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47and you can imagine it was quite a dramatic experience.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50He writes that is the moment he decided pottery was for him.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58Leach was convinced he had seen the future for British pottery.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00An Anglo-Oriental style that would recapture
0:17:00 > 0:17:04the glories of craftsmanship lost to the monotony of the production line.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16The challenge facing him was to achieve back home in England
0:17:16 > 0:17:18what he had seen in Japan.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25But returning to these shores proved a rude awakening.
0:17:28 > 0:17:29He felt out of place.
0:17:29 > 0:17:34Everywhere he looked, he saw the ugly, soulless modern world
0:17:34 > 0:17:35encroaching on the countryside.
0:17:41 > 0:17:45So when an offer came to fund a pottery in Cornwall,
0:17:45 > 0:17:47Leach jumped at the opportunity.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52In 1920, I had returned from Japan
0:17:52 > 0:17:55with all that I had learnt during 11 years,
0:17:55 > 0:17:56to start a pottery in St Ives.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03It seemed an unlikely spot to ignite a pottery revolution.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07He comes to St Ives for the first time,
0:18:07 > 0:18:11he brings with him an idea of what English pottery should be,
0:18:11 > 0:18:14and an idea of what Oriental pottery should be.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16And then he has this great challenge
0:18:16 > 0:18:19of trying to bring these things together...
0:18:22 > 0:18:26..to a public who have absolutely no interest at all
0:18:26 > 0:18:32in this young, middle-class, odd, moustached Englishman.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37It was a huge risk for a man with a young family
0:18:37 > 0:18:41and no previous experience of running a business, let alone a pottery.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47Production began in 1921. But things quickly started to go wrong.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53The Leach Pottery from the outset was really
0:18:53 > 0:18:56fraught with technical problems. They had to rebuild the kiln,
0:18:56 > 0:19:01they had problems maintaining a high standard of ware.
0:19:01 > 0:19:06And although Leach had arguments to suggest that
0:19:06 > 0:19:10perhaps these kinds of technical issues were not of prime importance,
0:19:10 > 0:19:15nevertheless they affected the efficient running of the pottery
0:19:15 > 0:19:19and its ability to actually be sustainable.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26It wasn't a good start, and things didn't improve.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29Leach had discovered, like many before him,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32that it was fiendishly difficult to make a profit from pots
0:19:32 > 0:19:34without a production line.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41And yet his sense of what made a good pot was taking recognisable shape.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49A pot is a living thing, its associations are markedly human.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53We talk of the foot, belly, the shoulder, the neck and the lip,
0:19:53 > 0:19:58and we intuitively feel a good pot's honesty, strength, nobility,
0:19:58 > 0:20:02warmth, delicacy or charm, much as we do with people.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09This stoneware bottle from that period is as alive in spirit
0:20:09 > 0:20:11as the leaping fish that decorate it.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17East and West are effortlessly brought together
0:20:17 > 0:20:18to create something new.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28Despite this, for the next ten years,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31the Leach Pottery remained constantly in debt.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37But Bernard Leach wasn't alone in finding the going tough.
0:20:38 > 0:20:43The '30s was a decade that saw Britain as a nation hit hard times.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49The Great Slump, as it became known, was the largest economic depression
0:20:49 > 0:20:53experienced by this country in the 20th century.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00It was little wonder Leach was struggling to make ends meet
0:21:00 > 0:21:02through his pottery.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06His traditional methods of production were admirable, but expensive.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11On the verge of going out of business, his son David,
0:21:11 > 0:21:13who had worked with him at St Ives since 1930,
0:21:13 > 0:21:15decided to take radical action.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22While Bernard was away in Japan, for about 18 months,
0:21:22 > 0:21:24David consorted with the enemy, really,
0:21:24 > 0:21:27and went on a pottery manager's course up in Stoke-on-Trent,
0:21:27 > 0:21:32finally learnt some practical nuts and bolts of how to make pots
0:21:32 > 0:21:36and the technical requirements that were needed.
0:21:38 > 0:21:40David made key improvements,
0:21:40 > 0:21:43such as converting the kiln to being oil-fired.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47Very soon, Bernard's idea of producing
0:21:47 > 0:21:51a range of practical, honest pots became a real possibility.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57From the late 1930s, Bernard and David Leach began to make
0:21:57 > 0:21:59what they termed standard ware.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02Everyday pots for domestic use,
0:22:02 > 0:22:05they captured the essence of Leach's philosophy.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08And the business finally began to make money.
0:22:16 > 0:22:18The Leach Pottery inspired others
0:22:18 > 0:22:22to try and breathe new life into a lost art.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25His first pupil at St Ives, Michael Cardew,
0:22:25 > 0:22:28was also devoted to reviving the vernacular style
0:22:28 > 0:22:30with his own useful pots, made in the slipware tradition.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38They possessed a wonderful coherence,
0:22:38 > 0:22:40with the body and the glaze united
0:22:40 > 0:22:42by being fired together in a single kiln firing.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47The transparent honey glaze enhanced and revealed
0:22:47 > 0:22:49the warmth of the red clay itself.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01But there was an alternative vision for British pottery.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08William Staite Murray was an artist potter inspired by
0:23:08 > 0:23:11the simple elegance of Song Dynasty Chinese pots.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18Staite Murray believed that ceramics was the most radical art form,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21and every bit the equal of painting or sculpture.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26His pots were not useful.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29They were for the art gallery, and priced accordingly.
0:23:32 > 0:23:37He was a true artist potter. And he did the most wonderful work.
0:23:37 > 0:23:42And I think one has to see him more as an artist.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46He didn't try and set up a school of potters,
0:23:46 > 0:23:52he didn't have an idea of pots in relation to lifestyle, if you like.
0:23:52 > 0:23:55He was just interested in the piece of work.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02He was a really important and incredibly impressive potter.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15Together with Bernard Leach,
0:24:15 > 0:24:18William Staite Murray achieved the extraordinary,
0:24:18 > 0:24:21by turning the making of pottery into both an intellectual pursuit
0:24:21 > 0:24:24and a serious artistic endeavour.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30"A child may ask when our strange epoch passes,
0:24:30 > 0:24:34"during a history lesson,
0:24:34 > 0:24:37"'Please, Sir, what's an intellectual of the middle classes?
0:24:37 > 0:24:40"'Is he a maker of ceramic pots?'"
0:24:44 > 0:24:48But Leach's most significant production would come not with clay,
0:24:48 > 0:24:49but with words.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53In 1940, he published A Potter's Book.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00More than just a technical manual, A Potter's Book was
0:25:00 > 0:25:04a powerful assertion of the art and philosophy of the potter.
0:25:06 > 0:25:11When it was published, it was regarded as the potter's bible,
0:25:11 > 0:25:16because it describes, to begin with, the aesthetic approach.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21It describes how to set up a pottery.
0:25:22 > 0:25:27It gives you a bit of history, it tells you how to make clays,
0:25:27 > 0:25:32how to make bodies, and so the whole thing is 90% a how to do it,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36but it's all imbued with a rather elegant way of working.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43If you just sit reading A Potter's Book,
0:25:43 > 0:25:47especially the last chapter, which is a kind of idealised account
0:25:47 > 0:25:52of his workshop, in which he is working in harmony with his sons,
0:25:52 > 0:25:57and a few likely lads who have been trained up locally,
0:25:57 > 0:26:04then you do get a sense of an art that's embedded in a moral framework.
0:26:06 > 0:26:101940, though, was not a good year to publish your first book.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17But when the Second World War ended, the values of A Potter's Book chimed perfectly
0:26:17 > 0:26:20with the mood of the new austerity Britain.
0:26:26 > 0:26:28It had a massive impact in the post-war period,
0:26:28 > 0:26:31because I think it offered something
0:26:31 > 0:26:34that people felt had been lacking in their lives.
0:26:34 > 0:26:41Perhaps it was a return to some form of simplicity, of a rural ideal.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45You can imagine the power of this book
0:26:45 > 0:26:49for servicemen coming back, coming back deracinated, footloose,
0:26:49 > 0:26:54in need of a sense of direction.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58You pick up this book and you know what you can do.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01You can go off and become a post-war English potter.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05Pottery has always been a communal activity,
0:27:05 > 0:27:09and pots were made to serve a need at once utilitarian and aesthetic.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13Today, in the background of mechanisation,
0:27:13 > 0:27:15the handworking potter is being
0:27:15 > 0:27:19pushed away from utility, towards artistry.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21And there is a danger of craftsmanship becoming
0:27:21 > 0:27:23over-conscious and eclectic.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29He came forward with a philosophy,
0:27:29 > 0:27:33he came forward with an aesthetic view,
0:27:33 > 0:27:37and that caught people's imagination.
0:27:38 > 0:27:43For the next 25 years, he was the major guru of pottery.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53Leach's philosophy would come to dominate post-war British ceramics.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58It resonated with the back-to-basics mood of the public.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05Leach's production of standard ware had a huge influence
0:28:05 > 0:28:08in the post-war period with a public
0:28:08 > 0:28:11that had an interest again in peasant cooking,
0:28:11 > 0:28:14in the recipes of Elizabeth David,
0:28:14 > 0:28:18and further on into the 1960s and '70s,
0:28:18 > 0:28:21in the whole countercultural movement that celebrated
0:28:21 > 0:28:23the environment and vegetarianism.
0:28:23 > 0:28:28And restaurants such as Cranks would use these kind of plates,
0:28:28 > 0:28:32these robust stoneware plates, for their hearty vegetarian food.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36Bernard Leach himself had become the standard.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39The question, "To Leach or not to Leach?,"
0:28:39 > 0:28:42had been resolved, it seemed.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51But the pendulum in British pottery was swinging once more,
0:28:51 > 0:28:55this time away from the traditional and towards trying something new.
0:28:55 > 0:29:00And a young Viennese woman and her devoted apprentice would bring
0:29:00 > 0:29:01some welcome fresh air into
0:29:01 > 0:29:04the brown world of British studio pottery.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09I got married in the beginning of the '50s.
0:29:09 > 0:29:11And when you're newly married,
0:29:11 > 0:29:14you're going to start off on something new,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16and you buy all your crockery and so on.
0:29:16 > 0:29:21And I saw some extraordinary cups
0:29:21 > 0:29:25and mugs in a shop in London,
0:29:25 > 0:29:28which were unlike anything I'd ever seen before.
0:29:30 > 0:29:32The elegant tableware of Lucie Rie
0:29:32 > 0:29:35was much sought after by young homemakers.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41But when she'd first arrived in London in 1938,
0:29:41 > 0:29:43it had been a very different story.
0:29:44 > 0:29:50So Lucie Rie, who comes with gold medals in European exhibitions
0:29:50 > 0:29:57for her work, she arrives in England, and shows her work to Leach,
0:29:57 > 0:30:01who says, "This is terrible, they're too thin, they're not proper."
0:30:04 > 0:30:07And people don't get what she wants to do.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10It doesn't fit the form of proper pottery.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19Leach didn't say this, but what he meant was,
0:30:19 > 0:30:21you've got to make pots like me.
0:30:22 > 0:30:27So despite her renown in Europe, Rie tried to adapt her refined style
0:30:27 > 0:30:31to the prevailing Leachian philosophy.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35Bernard Leach became a great friend, but he didn't like my pots.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39Only later, after my first exhibition, he liked them.
0:30:39 > 0:30:45The first ones, I tried to follow Bernard Leach's rules,
0:30:45 > 0:30:47make heavier pots.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51Heavier shapes. Make earthenware that was uninteresting anyway.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56Rie reverted back to the style she knew best.
0:30:56 > 0:31:01And soon, there was no shortage of admirers for her refined pots.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05Very simple.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08But the delicacy with which the rim...
0:31:08 > 0:31:11There's this lovely, lovely white.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15The feel of the weight of the pot, and so on. And that shape.
0:31:15 > 0:31:16That's a very...
0:31:18 > 0:31:20You wouldn't find Bernard Leach producing a shape like that.
0:31:22 > 0:31:27Um...and it has this, um, elemental beauty.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34As David Attenborough's passion for her pots grew,
0:31:34 > 0:31:36he found Rie herself just as captivating.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43I have to say, I was always on my best behaviour
0:31:43 > 0:31:44when Lucie was around.
0:31:46 > 0:31:50She was utterly charming, and extraordinarily sweet,
0:31:50 > 0:31:55but a marvellous, strong character who knew what her standards were,
0:31:55 > 0:31:59and you wouldn't budge her from those by a millimetre.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02Is that pink just the colour you expected?
0:32:02 > 0:32:06Not precisely, but nearly precisely!
0:32:06 > 0:32:10Her determination was legendary, as Attenborough was to discover
0:32:10 > 0:32:12when he filmed with her in 1982.
0:32:12 > 0:32:19There is a moment in her studio when she has been unloading a kiln,
0:32:19 > 0:32:21and showing me what had come out,
0:32:21 > 0:32:23and then she got right to the bottom,
0:32:23 > 0:32:25which was quite a deep electric kiln,
0:32:25 > 0:32:29and reaching for one of the pots, she got stuck.
0:32:29 > 0:32:34We were filming away, and this was a long time she was down there
0:32:34 > 0:32:36at the bottom with her feet on the top,
0:32:36 > 0:32:38and eventually, this ghostly voice
0:32:38 > 0:32:43from the bottom of the kiln said, "I think I am stuck, can you help me?"
0:32:43 > 0:32:46- Or something like that. - Thank you. I got stuck.
0:32:48 > 0:32:52And so I had to pull her out by the feet.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55Afterwards, she said, "You won't show that, will you?"
0:32:58 > 0:33:02Rie's work opened up new possibilities for British ceramics.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05Pots could be cosmopolitan and modern.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12But there was another man in Lucie Rie's life,
0:33:12 > 0:33:16one who had turned up on her doorstep after the war,
0:33:16 > 0:33:17looking for work.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20He would, more than anyone,
0:33:20 > 0:33:24take British pottery to another level, instilling it with
0:33:24 > 0:33:29the confidence to be an expressive art, a sculpture in ceramic form.
0:33:32 > 0:33:33His name was Hans Coper.
0:33:41 > 0:33:44When Hans Coper came to her door in 1946,
0:33:44 > 0:33:51it rapidly became clear that he was intelligent and ambitious,
0:33:51 > 0:33:55and he said to her, "I want to become a potter."
0:33:55 > 0:33:59He became a potter, and they then started to make pots together.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05Coper was 26, Rie a 44-year-old divorcee,
0:34:05 > 0:34:08yet they had much in common.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12Both were Jewish, both forced from their homeland by Hitler,
0:34:12 > 0:34:14and both had found a new life in London.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18They understood each other,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22and the bond between them would last for the rest of Coper's life.
0:34:22 > 0:34:24And Rie remained his most passionate advocate.
0:34:28 > 0:34:34Hans was really the superior guideline in more or less everything.
0:34:34 > 0:34:38- You mean, he looked at your pots and advised you?- Yes.
0:34:38 > 0:34:42Because he criticised. He was very correct and sharp
0:34:42 > 0:34:43and to the point.
0:34:43 > 0:34:49- Did you criticise him?- In the beginning, yes. But then, never.- Why?
0:34:49 > 0:34:51There was nothing to criticise.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57Lucie revered Hans as an artist to an extraordinary degree,
0:34:57 > 0:35:00and diminished herself whenever she spoke about him.
0:35:00 > 0:35:05"Oh, I am nothing, Hans was the talent". That is not actually true.
0:35:05 > 0:35:07I mean, Lucie was a huge talent.
0:35:07 > 0:35:12So was Hans, but they rubbed off onto one another.
0:35:18 > 0:35:24Did she fall in love with him? Yes, she did. But it wasn't sexual.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28But she fell in love with him, which was respectful,
0:35:28 > 0:35:33and he respected and loved her in the same sort of way.
0:35:36 > 0:35:40While Lucie Rie's work remained domestic and functional,
0:35:40 > 0:35:41as Hans Coper's confidence grew,
0:35:41 > 0:35:45he became increasingly sculptural in his ambition.
0:35:47 > 0:35:48This piece, nominally a vase,
0:35:48 > 0:35:52was made by throwing separate stoneware pieces on a wheel,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55then altering and assembling them by hand.
0:35:59 > 0:36:04Glazed in white, a black underlayer shows through in places.
0:36:04 > 0:36:06It's a handsome vessel,
0:36:06 > 0:36:10in a European tradition of sculpture as much as ceramics.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22The only person brave enough to put flowers in a Coper vase
0:36:22 > 0:36:23was Lucie Rie.
0:36:24 > 0:36:29Hans Coper actually understands, right from the very beginning,
0:36:29 > 0:36:33that ceramics don't belong in one place,
0:36:33 > 0:36:36but can belong in a much, much wider scale.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39In a different kind of environment.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43And right from the beginning, he's interested in...
0:36:43 > 0:36:45the architectural possibilities
0:36:45 > 0:36:49of what he's doing, and this leads him to make
0:36:49 > 0:36:53the most extraordinary architectural ceramics of the twentieth century.
0:37:02 > 0:37:07The city of Coventry was devastated by heavy German bombing
0:37:07 > 0:37:08in November, 1940.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11Among the architectural casualties
0:37:11 > 0:37:14was the 15th century St Michael's Cathedral,
0:37:14 > 0:37:16reduced to a smoking ruin.
0:37:24 > 0:37:26But Coventry would rise again.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34In the years following the war, a new cathedral would take shape,
0:37:34 > 0:37:37under architect Sir Basil Spence.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42And for the altar candlesticks, he turned to Hans Coper.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48So you have to imagine, 1962, Basil Spence's cathedral opens up.
0:37:48 > 0:37:50There's the windows,
0:37:50 > 0:37:52there's this great Sutherland tapestry behind us,
0:37:52 > 0:37:57and there is Coper enshrined on the high altar.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03And they're pots. That's the extraordinary thing about them.
0:38:03 > 0:38:05This is a vessel, you can see it's a thrown vessel
0:38:05 > 0:38:06on top of another one,
0:38:06 > 0:38:10down to here, and then another one down to there, and so on.
0:38:10 > 0:38:15All the way down, threaded together on steel poles.
0:38:15 > 0:38:19Somehow, he managed to keep that vigour going, even though
0:38:19 > 0:38:20these are engineered pots.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25You have to look, and there's the surface, it's abraded,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29he's managed to put great surface into this.
0:38:29 > 0:38:34There are marks of the wheel, there's marks here where he's turned it
0:38:34 > 0:38:37very loosely, and then he's rubbed in oxides
0:38:37 > 0:38:39and here's a bronzy glaze applied.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45So they are absolutely pots.
0:38:46 > 0:38:50This is ceramic sculpture that looks to other sculpture.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54This is like Giacometti, this is like Brancusi,
0:38:54 > 0:38:58this where ceramics belong, says Hans Coper,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01and they are absolutely wonderful, wonderful things.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18Down in St Ives, Bernard Leach, who had done so much to liberate
0:39:18 > 0:39:22English pottery from the production line, was now an old man.
0:39:24 > 0:39:26Yet in his final years,
0:39:26 > 0:39:29it was his pots rather than his words
0:39:29 > 0:39:31that once again caught the eye.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39There's a wonderful freedom at the end of his life.
0:39:39 > 0:39:48There are pots that he makes where he really is quite old and quite shaky,
0:39:48 > 0:39:52and they don't obey the prescriptions that he has built up,
0:39:52 > 0:39:56and they don't seem to channel any of the stories
0:39:56 > 0:39:58and the dogmas that he has developed.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03But they are very, very beautiful objects,
0:40:03 > 0:40:06and there is the sense of someone who has spent
0:40:06 > 0:40:09a whole lifetime making pots.
0:40:09 > 0:40:10Just making.
0:40:15 > 0:40:19And I think that they are the best pots he ever made.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30I see things in dreams sometimes, and when I wake, I think,
0:40:30 > 0:40:33"Oh, that's only dreamland.
0:40:33 > 0:40:36"Would that I could go to my wheel
0:40:36 > 0:40:40"and try that dozen pots that came into my mind's eye."
0:40:42 > 0:40:47How do you react when people talk of you as being great?
0:40:47 > 0:40:50There is an assurance that life
0:40:50 > 0:40:53has had some meaning for you,
0:40:53 > 0:40:58that you have made some kind of contribution to it.
0:40:58 > 0:41:00What more joyful thing can you think of?
0:41:05 > 0:41:08When Bernard Leach died in 1979,
0:41:08 > 0:41:11something of 20th century British ceramics also died.
0:41:13 > 0:41:17He had towered over it for over half a century.
0:41:17 > 0:41:21And in doing so, he had succeeded in transforming
0:41:21 > 0:41:25the making of handmade pottery into a worldwide movement.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37At the end of the '60s,
0:41:37 > 0:41:40a mood of radicalism swept through Britain's cities.
0:41:43 > 0:41:48The Summer of Love was over, and what many wanted was change.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51What was good enough for your parents' generation
0:41:51 > 0:41:54was now the very thing to be snarled at.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59And a new wave of potters rebelled with clay.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07Alison Britton studied under Hans Coper
0:42:07 > 0:42:09at the Royal College of Art in London.
0:42:09 > 0:42:13She and others, such as Jacqui Poncelet and Carol McNicoll,
0:42:13 > 0:42:17railed against Leach's narrow definition of a good pot.
0:42:17 > 0:42:23In response, they would stretch ideas of ceramic form into new,
0:42:23 > 0:42:24irregular shapes.
0:42:27 > 0:42:30Their expressive pots came to be known as the New Ceramics.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40There were quite a few pots like funguses in the '60s,
0:42:40 > 0:42:45or rock formations, and we were very against them.
0:42:45 > 0:42:47That just seemed like a cul de sac.
0:42:50 > 0:42:56We wanted much more allusion to European architecture, modernism,
0:42:56 > 0:43:02saucepans, air vents, anything that was an exciting form was stimulus.
0:43:03 > 0:43:07So Leach was probably horrified by what was happening in the '70s.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13Alison Britton and her fellow firebrands wanted to shake
0:43:13 > 0:43:17British studio pottery out of what they saw as its creative torpor.
0:43:18 > 0:43:23We began looking much more at colourful things that weren't green
0:43:23 > 0:43:27and brown and things that weren't thrown, it just got much livelier.
0:43:27 > 0:43:29That's my perspective on it.
0:43:29 > 0:43:30Some people thought, "Oh, my God,
0:43:30 > 0:43:32"they're losing all the...
0:43:32 > 0:43:34"All the things that matter are being thrown away."
0:43:34 > 0:43:37But I felt that great things were found.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43The potter's wheel was the first casualty of this new approach.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48One of the things that is very common in her work
0:43:48 > 0:43:50is the use of slab building technique,
0:43:50 > 0:43:53taking a big flat, piece of clay, maybe cutting it into a form,
0:43:53 > 0:43:57and then building it, almost like someone modelling something
0:43:57 > 0:44:04in cardboard. That gives the pots a kind of swerve, and a kind of lean,
0:44:04 > 0:44:08and a dynamism that, of course, a thrown pot is not going to have,
0:44:08 > 0:44:12because it is of course symmetrical and it can capture a lot of motion,
0:44:12 > 0:44:16but it's this motion, you know, whereas an Alison Britton pot
0:44:16 > 0:44:20has this kind of motion, it goes where you don't expect it to,
0:44:20 > 0:44:25it's like ten Leaning Towers of Pisa colliding in one object.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37The other thing that the work of these potters called into question
0:44:37 > 0:44:40was the function of function itself.
0:44:41 > 0:44:45They were subverting not just the pot, the functional pot,
0:44:45 > 0:44:49but the whole idea of the woman as the homemaker,
0:44:49 > 0:44:53as the person who's making and pouring the tea.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56And it links in to me very interestingly
0:44:56 > 0:45:01with what was happening in literature at that time,
0:45:01 > 0:45:06with the whole feminist outpouring of slightly crazy books.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10I mean, these were wayward girls, weren't they,
0:45:10 > 0:45:16like an Angela Carter heroine doing this completely subversive pots.
0:45:20 > 0:45:23Function was a kind of challenge word, in a way.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26We thought, well, there are lots of kinds of function.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28It's not simply about domestic function.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32There's the function of visual delight,
0:45:32 > 0:45:35there's the function of aesthetic pleasure, and so on,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39and the function of objects that sort of represent something,
0:45:39 > 0:45:43that are communicating.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46There's something really cagey about Alison Britton's pots.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50They are a little bit bigger than you'd expect.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53So you couldn't really lift them and use them very easily.
0:45:53 > 0:45:57And they usually refer to some kind of form or some kind of function,
0:45:57 > 0:46:01so maybe pouring, or containment of some kind,
0:46:01 > 0:46:06but they are never things that you would really want to use.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10They are things that I suppose make your wheels spin.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13And they are always a bit surprising, you know,
0:46:13 > 0:46:17they are in some ways meta pots. They're pots about pots.
0:46:26 > 0:46:31By the end of the 20th century, British art was in rude health.
0:46:31 > 0:46:35More assured, more provocative than ever before.
0:46:35 > 0:46:40And studio pottery in Britain, more than in any other Western country,
0:46:40 > 0:46:43was primed and ready to share the limelight.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53Grayson Perry won the Turner Prize in 2003.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59Well, it's about time a transvestite potter won the Turner Prize.
0:47:02 > 0:47:07He is an artist from Essex who rides motorbikes, wears dresses,
0:47:07 > 0:47:09and makes pots.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15I learnt pottery at evening classes.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18I was living in a squat, I didn't have a studio,
0:47:18 > 0:47:21so it was somewhere to keep my hand in.
0:47:23 > 0:47:28I think I sold my first piece of pottery for, like, 35 quid,
0:47:28 > 0:47:31which was more than a week's dole money.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35So I thought, you know, I thought the market
0:47:35 > 0:47:39at that price range was more likely to buy a piece of ceramics
0:47:39 > 0:47:44than a bit of art. So it was purely pragmatic at that point, I think.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48But then I very quickly learned that pottery was discomforting
0:47:48 > 0:47:53to my fellow artists, which was most appealing.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01Edmund de Waal is a writer and potter.
0:48:01 > 0:48:04His work is much sought after by collectors
0:48:04 > 0:48:07and galleries around the world.
0:48:08 > 0:48:11I started making pots when I was five.
0:48:11 > 0:48:15For some reason I got it into my head that this is what I wanted to do.
0:48:15 > 0:48:19There was an evening class and I persuaded my dear dad
0:48:19 > 0:48:22to take me to this evening class.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26I remember throwing a pot on the wheel, this shape,
0:48:26 > 0:48:30it was a kind of...it was a bowl,
0:48:30 > 0:48:34and then I remember it being finished,
0:48:34 > 0:48:37and everyone saying, "And now you're going to decorate it."
0:48:37 > 0:48:41And I went, "No, it's going to be white, I want it white!"
0:48:41 > 0:48:43So I remember my first pot was this white bowl.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53I coil my pots, in the ancient way of making sausages
0:48:53 > 0:48:56and going round and building it up slowly,
0:48:56 > 0:48:59partly because I just never want to sit at a potter's wheel.
0:48:59 > 0:49:03It ranks up there with finding myself holding a golf club.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17What I feel when I'm making pots is just pure, pure pleasure
0:49:17 > 0:49:22to be at my wheel. I mean, it is absolutely the best bit.
0:49:33 > 0:49:38Most of the kind of colour in my work is in the slip.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41And I build up layers and stencils and carve the slip,
0:49:41 > 0:49:45and so a lot of the imagery is fixed before it's even been fired once,
0:49:45 > 0:49:49and I have one bucket of glaze. I'm not a fancy glaze person.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52I have one bucket of glaze that I use as high temperature varnish,
0:49:52 > 0:49:55really, because, again, I'm working with an archetype.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59I want people to look at my pots and go, "Oh, that's an interesting pot."
0:49:59 > 0:50:04Not an unusual pot, an interesting pot. I'm not pushing the envelope
0:50:04 > 0:50:08of what ceramics can be, that's what ceramicists do.
0:50:10 > 0:50:15Edmund de Waal trained as a potter in the Bernard Leach tradition.
0:50:15 > 0:50:19I set up my first authentic pottery in the Welsh borders,
0:50:19 > 0:50:23and made Leach-y pots, very badly, I have to say.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27No-one liked them, and they are pretty ghastly.
0:50:30 > 0:50:34And I was in Japan, and that's when I started using porcelain.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38I started to realise that porcelain did something completely different for me.
0:50:38 > 0:50:44It had a kind of purity, a sort of exposed quality,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47which I hadn't found in the rough clays I'd used before.
0:50:49 > 0:50:51Grayson Perry is finishing a pot
0:50:51 > 0:50:56for his forthcoming exhibition at the British Museum.
0:50:56 > 0:51:01This is a picture of inside my head, in a way.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04Well, I've never been to Africa. My idea of Africa,
0:51:04 > 0:51:07this entire continent and all these billions of people,
0:51:07 > 0:51:10is just through the media. Which is, you know...
0:51:10 > 0:51:14So I have this probably completely false idea of Africa in my head.
0:51:14 > 0:51:18The two emotions I have when I think of Africa are guilt,
0:51:18 > 0:51:21as a kind of white European, and fear,
0:51:21 > 0:51:24because of all the horrible, scary things that seem to happen there.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27so I'm sure that's completely distorted,
0:51:27 > 0:51:31but I thought it would be interesting to make a pot about it.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44The idea of function in the work of both Grayson Perry
0:51:44 > 0:51:48and Edmund de Waal has moved on radically from the simple usefulness
0:51:48 > 0:51:50advocated by the likes of Bernard Leach.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55The function of my pots is different. They function,
0:51:55 > 0:51:58in the sense that they're still vessels.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01You could pour liquid into every single one of them,
0:52:01 > 0:52:03and it wouldn't leak.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06But that's a very kind of thin way of thinking about function.
0:52:09 > 0:52:15There's a piece recently I've done which is based around a Bach cantata.
0:52:15 > 0:52:21It's as functional as a teapot. It just functions slightly askew.
0:52:23 > 0:52:28Grayson Perry's pots are often not what they first seem.
0:52:28 > 0:52:33You always feel lulled into a sense of decorative security
0:52:33 > 0:52:35by looking at Grayson's work.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39They're very pretty objects, but then of course the impact comes
0:52:39 > 0:52:44when you look closely, when you see the decoration in detail.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47You see what the narratives are,
0:52:47 > 0:52:51and messages that are quite dangerous.
0:52:54 > 0:53:00He is doing something which takes nerve. And I like it.
0:53:08 > 0:53:12So, do your pots have a function?
0:53:12 > 0:53:15Do my pots have a function?!
0:53:15 > 0:53:16Oh, God...
0:53:28 > 0:53:31Keep me in motorbikes and dresses, that's the function of them.
0:53:40 > 0:53:42Edmund de Waal's work in recent years
0:53:42 > 0:53:45has become increasingly site sensitive, as he puts it.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52In 2009, he was commissioned by the V&A to come up with a work
0:53:52 > 0:53:57to mark the opening of its new Ceramics Galleries.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00He called it Signs and Wonders.
0:54:00 > 0:54:05425 porcelain vessels coyly arranged on a red metal shelf
0:54:05 > 0:54:08beneath the dome of the museum's main entrance.
0:54:12 > 0:54:17It was really my kind of take on how you remember objects.
0:54:17 > 0:54:18That you look at an object,
0:54:18 > 0:54:21then you turn away and you remake it,
0:54:21 > 0:54:24you make it as you remember it.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27And it's got that sense of an afterimage,
0:54:27 > 0:54:30of a memory of something that was there.
0:54:30 > 0:54:36So it's my afterimage, my take on the Chinese pots, and the Meissen,
0:54:36 > 0:54:40and the modernist pots in the collection.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45I think what Edmund is trying to do is use a pot
0:54:45 > 0:54:49as something like a word in a sentence.
0:54:49 > 0:54:53You know, on its own, it has a kind of self-evident quality,
0:54:53 > 0:54:57so you look at the one pot, but when it's put into that context,
0:54:57 > 0:55:01it builds into something that feels like a short story,
0:55:01 > 0:55:04or perhaps feels like a kind of narrative poem.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10There's an absolutely wonderful poem by Wallace Stevens,
0:55:10 > 0:55:15'I Placed A Jar in Tennessee', and the jar stands on the hill
0:55:15 > 0:55:19and is different from all the natural objects round it.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22And it changes the whole of the world it's in.
0:55:22 > 0:55:26And this, of course, is also a favourite poem also of Edmund's,
0:55:26 > 0:55:30and I think he has now reached a time in his work
0:55:30 > 0:55:33when he can place a cylindrical object
0:55:33 > 0:55:36and change all the things round it.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41His latest commission is on a more domestic scale
0:55:41 > 0:55:43than Signs and Wonders.
0:55:43 > 0:55:47That's my coffee. That's not part of the installation.
0:55:47 > 0:55:49A centrepiece for a dinner table.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55It's wrong. I mean, the very first thing is that it's wrong.
0:55:55 > 0:56:00It's both too empty and too congested at the same time.
0:56:00 > 0:56:05And that's about scale, and it's about colour. And tone.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07There aren't enough matt pieces in it,
0:56:07 > 0:56:10that actually I'm going to need to make
0:56:10 > 0:56:13a whole series of other pots again,
0:56:13 > 0:56:16with one of the more quieter, softer glazes.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23The competing forces in British studio pottery in the 20th century,
0:56:23 > 0:56:25of expression and function,
0:56:25 > 0:56:29seem to come together in Edmund de Waal's work.
0:56:30 > 0:56:34If you think of 20th century ceramics as being built around
0:56:34 > 0:56:37an opposition between something traditionalist,
0:56:37 > 0:56:40that's Bernard Leach, and on the other hand,
0:56:40 > 0:56:43people like Lucie Rie and Hans Coper,
0:56:43 > 0:56:46that looks like an insoluble contest
0:56:46 > 0:56:48between two completely different world views.
0:56:48 > 0:56:51I think what you have in Edmund's generation,
0:56:51 > 0:56:54not just him, but many of his colleagues as well,
0:56:54 > 0:56:58is a resolution of that seeming problem.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01The understanding, really, is that the historical qualities
0:57:01 > 0:57:04of the Leach tradition, and the progressive qualities
0:57:04 > 0:57:07that we might associate with someone like Lucie Rie,
0:57:07 > 0:57:11can actually be forged into a unified style,
0:57:11 > 0:57:14by creating these more complex narratives,
0:57:14 > 0:57:16around and through ceramics.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25The confidence displayed by British studio potters in the 21st century
0:57:25 > 0:57:30is the culmination of more than 100 years of experimenting with clay,
0:57:30 > 0:57:33making, by hand, thousands of pots.
0:57:35 > 0:57:39Studio pottery has become Britain's greatest triumph
0:57:39 > 0:57:41in the story of modern art.
0:57:42 > 0:57:48And today, our potters are amongst our most celebrated artists,
0:57:48 > 0:57:52a unique marriage of art and craft.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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