Biography
Julian Stair is one of the UK’s leading potters. He studied at Camberwell School of Art and the RCA. He has exhibited internationally since 1982 and has work in over 30 public collections including the V&A Museum, British Museum, American Museum of Art & Design, New York, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Grassi Museum, Leipzig, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Recent solo exhibitions include Art, Death and the Afterlife, (Sainsbury Centre, Norwich 2023), Equivalenze, (Fondazione ICA Milano, Milan 2019), Equivalence, (Corvi-Mora Gallery, London 2018), Quotidian (Corvi-Mora Gallery, London 2014-15) and Quietus: The Vessel, Death and the Human Body, (MIMA, National Museum Wales Cardiff, Winchester Cathedral, Somerset House, London 2012-14, Manchester Cathedral 2016). Recent exhibitions include Deep Horizons, (MIMA 2023), New Areas, (Walmer Yard, London, & Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire 2023), Other Lives, (Oxford Ceramics Gallery, 2022), Lust auf Lustheim: Meissen Inspired Modern Ceramics, (Schloss Lustheim, Munich 2022), Frieze Art Fair (London 2014-2021), Rob Barnard, Robert Burnier, Julian Stair, (Corvi-Mora Gallery, London 2021), Inner Lives, (Branch Museum, Richmond, Virginia, USA 2021), Started it in England: Leach and Hamada, in Two Ways, (Mashiko Museum, Japan 2020).
Julian is a leading historian of English studio ceramics. He completed a PhD at the RCA in 2002 researching the critical origins of English studio pottery and has written extensively. Julian’s essays have been published by Routledge, Bloomsbury, the Courtauld Institute, Tate Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. He was awarded an OBE in 2022 for his services to ceramics.
Awards
Art Fund purchase for the Crafts Council collection of Equivalence :
Large Cup with Handle, Cup on a Floating Ground
Bavarian State Prize, Exempla Fair, Munich, Germany
Art Fund purchase for the Crafts Council collection of Reliquary for a Common Man, from Quietus: The Vessel, Death and the Human Body
Grant for the Arts, Arts Council England
Finalist, International Triennial of Silicate Arts, Kecskemét, Hungary, Highly Commended
Art Fund purchase of Monumental Jar V, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art from COLLECT at the Victoria & Albert Museum
Finalist, Hamlyn Award
European Achievement Award, World Crafts Council
Queen Elizabeth Scholarship
Finalist, World Ceramic Exposition, Seoul, Korea
British Council Grant to Artist (exhibition in USA)
London Arts Board Grant to Artist
Crafts Council Publication Grant
British Council Grant to Artist (exhibition in Germany)
British Council Grant to Artist (exhibition in USA)
Sainsbury Trust, Crafts Council
Setting Up Grant, Crafts Council
Education
PhD, Royal College of Art, London Critical Writing on English Studio Pottery: 1910-1940
MA Ceramics, Royal College of Art, London
BA Ceramics, Camberwell College, University of the Arts, London
Public Collections
Aberdeen Art Gallery
Aberystwyth University Ceramic Collection & Archive
Abingdon Museum
American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, USA
Arizona State University Art Museum
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, USA
British Academy
British Council
British Museum
Cleveland Craft Centre
Contemporary Art Society
Crafts Council
Fitzwilliam Museum
Gallery Oldham
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery
Grassi Museum, Leipzig, Germany
Hong Kong Museum of Art
Hove Museum
Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Germany
Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Netherlands
Museum of Art & Design, New York, USA
National Museum of Wales
Paisley Museum
Pallant House Gallery
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, USA
Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts
Shipley Museum
The Mint Museum, Charlotte, U.S.A.
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
Ulster Museum
University of Wales
Victoria & Albert Museum
York City Art Gallery
PUBLICATIONS
‘Contemporary Clay and Museum Culture’, ed. Christie Brown, Julian Stair, Clare Twomey, Routledge, 2016
The Body Politic, ed. Julian Stair, Crafts Council, 2000
In 2022 Julian received an OBE for his services to ceramics.