Dec 2010
The Japanese touring Lucie Rie exhibition opened at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka earlier in December. Anita and Louisa were generously invited to Japan by exhibition organisers Nikkei Inc. Curator of the museum, Mr Tetsuro Degawa, and Anita both gave talks about Lucie Rie at the opening on the 10th December. During their two week visit to Japan, Anita and Louisa met up with Galerie Besson artists Shozo Michikawa, Yasuhisa Kohyama, Shihoko Fukumoto, Ken Mihara, Ryoji Koie and Gwyn Hanssen Pigott.
Details of the exhibtion are on the webiste at www.lucie-rie.jp
Photographs from Anita and Louisa's visit are available here
June 2010
Celebrated Japanese potter Ryoji Koie will be working alongside Jack Doherty and the potters in the new Leach studio from 5 - 25 June preparing work for his forthcoming exhibition at Galerie Besson in Sep - Oct. On June 19th he will be holding a day long demonstation masterclass at the Leach Pottery.
Details are available on the Leach Pottery webiste at www.leachpottery.com
April 2010
A major touring retrospective of Lucie Rie opens in Tokyo on the 28 April. The exhibition, curated by the Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, and organised by Nikkei Inc., will exhibit over 250 works by Rie in the new National Art Centre building in Roppongi, Tokyo.
Full details are available on their webiste at www.lucie-rie.jp
March 2010
Galerie Besson has copies of David Whiting's new book available for sale at £30 + P&P.
August 2009
As part of the first British Ceramics Biennial programme, Neil Brownsword has invited three internationally acclaimed ceramic artists to work in a marl pit, at Ibstock Brick’s Newcastle-U-Lyme based clay quarry. Neil will be looking at the way artists interact with clay in its most primitive state. Over a five-day period, the artists’ reactions and interventions will be documented and later presented as evidence during the Biennial as film installation.
The British Ceramics Biennial represents the UK’s only festival to celebrate, and showcase the current wealth of contemporary ceramics through a ten-week programme of exhibitions, awards and events hosted in North Staffordshire.
The artists involved are Alexandra Engelfriet from Holland, Pekka Paikkari from Finland and Torbjorn Kvasbo from Norway.
More information about the biennial programme and the Marl Hole project can be found at: http://www.stokeceramicsfestival.co.uk
July 2009
The newest display at the Anthony Shaw Collection has been chosen by collector John Christian, and runs until 30 November 2009.
The Anthony Shaw Collection is one of Europe's most important private holdings of modern British studio ceramics. Acquired over 30 years by the couturier Anthony Shaw, there are over 600 pieces by some 50 artists. The collection ranges from the functional to the sculptural, with particular emphasis on the work of Gordon Baldwin, Gillian Lowndes and Ewen Henderson.
More information about the exhibition, and details of viewing times and contact information can be found on the trust's website - www.anthonyshawcollection.org
July 2009
We've updated our artists page online to include even more images and makers - and given it an easier to use layout.
There are now images and biographies for forty artists. Plus a list of other artists by whom we currently have work in stock.
www.galeriebesson.co.uk/artists.html
May 2009
In August 2008 Porcelain artist Margaret O’Rorke was invited by Jackson Li to the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute in Jingdezhen, China to work on the design of porcelain lighting for manufacture. She spent six weeks developing a range of forms, supported by a research and development grant from Arts Council South East.
Earlier this year Margaret was awarded a McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA – where she spent 3 months. The work she produced there will be exhibited at the Northern Clay Center, from May 15th to July 5th 2009. She will also be having a solo exhibition at the center in November 2009.
Margaret hopes to return to China this September to continue working on the translucent porcelain lighting prototypes for the industrial project.
Click here for a slideshow about her work in China and America.
Margaret's light sculpture “Hanging Circles” is currently on view at Galerie Besson. (See image right)
Please email us for prices and availability of work.
April 2009
Galerie Besson is delighted to announce it will be taking part in the inaugural SOFA WEST art fair in Santa Fe. The newest event in the highly successful SOFA fairs calendar will be held at the brand new Santa Fe Convention Center, New Mexico from 11 - 14 June 2009.
More details about the fair are available on the SOFA website at www.sofaexpo.com
Feb 2009
It was thanks to Bernard Dejonghe that I had the great pleasure of meeting Jacqueline Lerat in 2005. I was fascinated by her wonderful personality, the power of her work and I offered her an exhibition for the autumn of the year after. With great optimism (she was 85 at the time) she asked if she could have the exhibition in two year's time as it took her a long time to fill the large kiln she had built with her husband decades before.
From this wonderful exhibition in June 2007 the great number of her admirers increased internationally and a deep friendship developed, which I shall always treasure.
Jacqueline spent her last months writing about her life. In her last conversation with Bernard Dejonghe, the day before she died, she said to him "les sculpteurs travaillent sur le plein; les céramistes travaillent sur le vide; c'est très important" (sculptors work on the solid; ceramists work on the void). She repeated this twice to stress its importance. The manuscript will be published in April 2009.
She can be seen in her home, studio and garden in a wonderful film L’Etre et la Forme by Jeanne Hadorn, which won the Jury Prize and the Prize of the Public at the Festival International du Film sur l’Argile et le Verre. Please email us for details.
Anita Besson, February 2009
Jacqueline Lerat, potter, born 1920, died 3 February 2009
Feb 2008
An exhibition of vessels directed by Issey Miyake will be held at 21_21 Design Sight has opened in Tokyo. The exhibition, entitled "U-tsu-wa" showcases ceramic artists Lucie Rie and Jennifer Lee, and woodturning artist Ernst Gamperl. One hundred works by these three artists are displayed in a hall designed by Tadao Ando from February 13th until the end of June.
Download Press Release from 21_21 Design Sight
Feb 2009
Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Art alive is always modern
Until 15 February 2009
mima, Middlesbrough - www.visitmima.com
Last chance to see an exhibition of 29 works by Hans Coper and Lucie Rie at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. The exhibition presents major works by Rie and Coper drawn from mima's collection. It launches the long-term loan of the prestigious Abercairn Collection to mima which features some of the most significant works by these artists in private hands, and also features major works from the Crafts Council's collection.
Dec 2008
Inger Rokkjaer was one of the finest Danish potters of her generation. She found a language that was simple, clear and confident – cylinders, bowls and lidded jars that were restrained but full of their maker’s inimitable spirit. Her concentrated forms, thrown on the wheel, perhaps carved or faceted, sometimes embellished with incised and impressed decoration and then glazed in quietly luminous or earthier colours, had a rich raku depth and variation. There was a marked concision, a way of saying so much with a remarkable economy of means.
Yet what springs to mind first in thinking about Inger, was the force and vividness of her personality. She was so engaged. Her animated face and conversation, those warm affectionate eyes and that broad smile made her a very singular person – a charisma that simply lit up the room. It was this openness and generosity, this embracing energy and passion that Inger brought to her life and pots, and touched everyone who knew her.
David Whiting, 15 December 2008
Inger Rokkjaer, potter, born 20 February 1934, died 13 December 2008.
Oct 2008
Our new website is now up and running. The old website was very popular and we have aimed to keep the new one just as easy to use. Additional and improved areas include increased biographical details and images of work available by our gallery artists, information about the fairs in which we participate, a news page and a new online gallery featuring works from our stock cupboard, entitled 'Cupboard'. We hope that you enjoy the new site.
May 2008
The Victoria & Albert Museum have acquired one of the most important pieces from Jennifer Lee's recent sell-out exhibition. The exhibtiion in April - May 2008 presented 18 works, which had been made over the previous 2 years. The acquisition will form part of the museum's contemporary ceramic collection which is due to reopen, after a major departmental refurbishment, in late 2009.
May 2008
A blue plaque has been unveiled at Lucie Rie's Albion Mews studio in London, where she lived and worked from 1939 until her death in 1995. English Heritage Press Release.
March 2008
The first Museum exhibition of Lucie Rie's work to held in France co-incides with the publication of a french translation Tony Birk's monograpgh publised by Revue de la Ceramique et du verre.
26 March - 7 April 2008. Musée national de Céramique, Sevres, Paris.
Lucie Rie exhibition, Osaka
Ryoji Koie
Lucie Rie exhibition in Tokyo
Etruria Marl, Newcastle-U-Lyme
Collector's Choice at The Anthony Shaw Collection
The new look artists page
Hanging Circles, porcelain light sculpture - Margaret O'Rorke
The Santa Fe Convention Center
Jacqueline Lerat with Anita Besson, Somerset, 2007
JENNIFER LEE
21_21 Design Sight
Hans Coper & Lucie Rie
mima, Middlesbrough
Inger Rokkjaer
1934 - 2008