Alison Britton
Born 1948, Harrow, Middlesex
Lives and works in London
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1970-73 Royal College of Art, MA Ceramics
1967-70 Central School of Art and Design, Dip AD
1966-67 Leeds College of Art, Pre-Diploma year
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- Solo Exhibitions
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2020
“Heat-work", Corvi-Mora, London
“Dialogues”, Taste Contemporary, Geneva -
2018
“Making it Up”, Marsden Woo Gallery, London
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2017
“Alison Britton: Fieldwork”, Galleri Format, Oslo
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2016
“Alison Britton: Content and Form”, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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2012
“Life and Still Life”, Crafts Study Centre, UCA Farnham
“Standing and Running”, Marsden Woo Gallery, London -
2005
“Alison Britton New Work and the Ed Wolf Collection of Alison Britton Pots”, Barrett Marsden Gallery, London
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2003
“Alison Britton New Ceramics”, Barrett Marsden Gallery, London
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2001
“Alison Britton, Oeuvres Récentes”, Galerie DM Sarver, Paris
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1996
Alison Britton”, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia and toured museums in Canberra, Brisbane and Perth
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1995
“Form and Fiction”, Marianne Heller Galerie, Sandhausen
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1990
“Alison Britton - A Retrospective”, Two year tour organised by Aberystwyth Arts Centre, touring to Newport Museum, Aberdeen Museum, Carlisle Museum, Stoke on Trent, Cardiff Museum, York Museum, and Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Holland
“Alison Britton”, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
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1988
“Ceramics by Alison Britton”, Crafts Council of New South Wales, Sydney
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1987
“Alison Britton, New Ceramics”, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
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1985
“Ceramics: Alison Britton”, Miharudo Gallery, Tokyo
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1979
“The Work of Alison Britton”, Crafts Council, London
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- Group Exhibitions
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2023
“New Areas: Contemporary Ceramics at Walmer Yard” Walmer Yard, London
“New Areas: Contemporary Ceramics at Newstead Abbey” Newstead Abbey, Nottingham -
2021
"Cracked", Tristan Hoare, London
“Maker’s Eye”, Crafts Council Gallery, London
The Arts Club, London
“Pioneering Women”, Oxford Ceramics Gallery, Oxford
“British Studio Ceramic”, Messums Wiltshire, Salisbury -
2019
“An Idea Needing to be Made: Contemporary Ceramics”, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Victoria, Australia
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2018
"Alison Britton (UK) + Misha Stroj (AT)", Stereo Exchange, Copenhagen
“Contenu/Contained”, Musée Ariana, Geneva
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2017
“Woman’s Hour Craft Prize”, V&A Museum, London, and UK tour
“The Social Life of Things”, Corvi-Mora, London
"Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery”, Yale Center for British Art,
Newhaven, Connecticut, and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
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2016
“Kneaded Knowledge, The Language of Ceramics”, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, and
National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic
“Vase: Function Reviewed”, National Craft Gallery, Kilkenny
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2015
“Many a Slip”, Marsden Woo Gallery, London
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2014
“Cut and Run”, Marsden Woo Gallery, London
“The Ceramic Object”, Galleri Format, Oslo
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2013
“Cheongju International Craft Biennale”, Cheongju
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2012
“Libertés, Affinités”, Galerie 19 Rue Paul Fort, Paris
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2009
“Unforeseen Events”, Marsden Woo Gallery, London (with Marit Tingleff)
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2007
“END”, The Danish Museum of Art and Design, Copenhagen; Bomuldsfabriken
Kunsthall, Arendal
“Containing”, Barrett Marsden Gallery, London
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2005
“Transformations, the Language of Craft”, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
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2003
“British Ceramics: Five Artists”, Frank Lloyd Gallery at LA International
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2002
“Key Figures of Modern Ceramics, Alison Britton and Gordon Baldwin”, Deutsch
Amerikanischen Institut, Heidelberg -
2001
“Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts: Ceramics”, Crafts Council, London
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2000
“Firing Imagination”, British Council tour of British Ceramics to Brazil
“Britisk Keramik”, Keramikmuseet Grimmerhus, Denmark -
1999
“541 Vases, Pots, Sculptures and Services”, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
“British Ceramics at Galerie Binnen”, Amsterdam, Barrett Marsden Gallery with Galerie Binnen, Amsterdam
“Constructions: Ceramics and the Memory of Architecture”, Marianne Heller Gallery, Heidelberg
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1998
“British Ceramics from 1950 to the present”, Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam
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1997
“Oeuvres Récentes”, Gordon Baldwin, Alison Britton, Galerie Sarver, Paris
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1996
“The British Are Coming”, Indigo Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida
“Das Andere Gefass, Saarlandisches Kunstlerhaus, Saarbrucken, Germany
“Objects of our Time”, Crafts Council, London, and tour
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1993
“The Raw and the Cooked: New Work in Clay in Britain”, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, and tour to Barbican Art Gallery, London; Taiwan Museum; Swansea Museum; Shigaraki Ceramic Sculpture Park, Japan; Musée d'Art Contemporain de Dunkerque, France
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1990
“Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, and Their Pupils”, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich
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1988
“Contemporary British Crafts”, National Museums of Modern Art, Kyoto, and Tokyo
Galerie Het Kapelhuis, Amersfoort
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1987
“The Vessel”, Serpentine Gallery, London
“Our Domestic Landscape”, Cornerhouse, Manchester -
1985
“Fast Forward: New Directions in British Ceramics”, ICA Gallery, London
“British Ceramics”, Kruithaus Museum, Den Bosch, Holland
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1984
“British Ceramics”, British Council exhibition touring Czechoslovakia
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1983
“Fifty-Five Pots”, Orchard Gallery, Londonderry
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1982
“The Maker's Eye”, Crafts Council, London
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1980
“Ceramics, Alison Britton and Jacqueline Poncelet”, Galerie Het Kapelhuis, Amersfoort, and Kruithaus Museum, Den Bosch, Holland
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- Recent Authorship in Publications
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- Books
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2013
“Seeing Things, Collected Writing on Art, Craft and Design”, London, Occasional Papers
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- Journal/catalogue articles/book chapters
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2019
'A View from Afar', essay in Prue Venables' catalogue, Living Treasures, Masters of Australian Craft series
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2018
Catalogue essay 'Slip-sliding narrative and evolving form in Philip Eglin’s new works
'The Maker's Eye' statement, CC catalogue1981, republished in ‘Craft’, Ed.Tanya Harrod, Documents of Contemporary Art series, Whitechapel Gallery
Essay ‘The Sumptuous Appeal of the Tactile’ in Angus Suttie, catalogue, Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales -
2017
Preface, ‘Circling’, in Yale Center for British Art exhibition catalogue, ‘Things of Beauty Growing, British Studio Pottery’
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2016
Chapter: ‘Curiosity and Speculation’ in book: KAREN BENNICKE - Spatial Destabilization, Strandberg Publishing, 2016, Denmark
‘Homework’, essay on Garry Fabian Miller in Making Thinking Living catalogue, Crafts Study Centre, UCA Farnham
Review of Betty Woodman’s ICA exhibition Theatre of the Domestic in The Burlington Magazine, May issue
Round table discussion on the role of ceramics in contemporary art, Frieze Magazine, May issue
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2014
‘The Relation of Craft’, essay for Collect magazine, Collect art fair, Saatchi Gallery, London
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2013
‘Overthrowing Tradition’ essay first published in electronic journal Interpreting Ceramics in 2002, revised and republished in the book Interpreting Ceramics, selected essays, Bath, Wunderkammer
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2012
‘Things and Work’ essay in Life and Still Life catalogue, Crafts Study Centre, UCA Farnham
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2019
‘The Fiction of Form’, Statement of Practice article in The Journal of Modern Craft, Vol 2.1, March
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- Recent Public Lectures
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2019
“Postmodernity and Clay: Reflecting on 'The Raw and the Cooked' exhibition of 1993”, York Art Gallery, November
“Words and Things”, public lecture given at ACT Sydney and RMIT Melbourne, Australia, August -
2018
“Finding Form”, Art Workers Guild, June
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2016
“Thinking on Your Feet”, Peter Dormer Memorial Lecture, Gorvy Lecture Theatre RCA Battersea, November 28
“Playing on the Fence: Making, Writing, and Objects”. Lecture at Norwegian Annual
International Crafts Seminar, Galleri F-15, April -
2015
“Use and Beauty: Things, Thinking, and Work”. Emmanuel Cooper Memorial Lecture:, UCA Farnham, March 5
Belfast Master Class Lecture, University of Ulster, Feb 12 -
2014
“Things and Work: Making, Objects, and Writing”. Henry Rothschild Memorial Lecture, Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, November 20
“The Lives of Things”, Keynote lecture at Craft Scotland Conference, Edinburgh, September
“Things and Work: the Relation of Making and the Found Object”. Lecture at ‘The Ceramic Object,’ seminar: KHiO: Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway, March
“Form and Fiction”. Lecture on British ceramics, UC, Boulder Colorado, 2014
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- Public Collections
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Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Canada
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Australian National Gallery, Canberra
Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe
Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam
British Council Collection
Contemporary Art Society
Crafts Council, London
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Hove Museum & Art Gallery
Kunst und Gewerbe Museum, Hamburg
Kruithaus Museum, Den Bosch, Holland
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA
Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan
Musée de Sevres, Paris
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
National Museum of Wales
Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway
Pallant House, Chichester
Princessehoff Museum, Leeuwarden, Holland
Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Svenska Handelbanken, Stockholm
The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
UCW Collection, Aberystwyth
Ulster Museum, Belfast
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Wurttembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart
York City Art Gallery