New details added to our Exhibitions Page

Check out DECEPTION: ceramics and imitation on our Exhibitions Page. Scroll down to 25 May 2013 – 5 January 2014 for details...here's some temptation.

Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grants

Here are details of an exciting grant programme for curators. Don't miss out!

Claire Blakey of the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery has passed on details from Rachael Browning of the Art Fund about the Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grants programme.

Claire says 'having been a recent beneficiary of this programme I encourage you to apply, it's a really good way of being able to carry out research that you would not normally have the funding for'.

Rachael is the chief Art fund contact for the Ceramics Network and gives the details of this grant programme here:

In 2012 the Art Fund launched a new £50,000 annual funding stream aimed at helping maintain and develop curatorial expertise in UK museums. The Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grants programme provides funding for travel and other practical costs to help curators from museums large and small undertake collection and exhibition research projects within the UK or anywhere in the world.

Since the scheme has launched we have been very encouraged by the number and quality of applications received - supporting nearly 40 curators to undertake research projects of all sizes, in nearly 30 institutions across the United Kingdom. As the funding is awarded to individuals, we are happy to accept simultaneous applications from curators who work within the same museum or museums service. 

Full details on the programme and some of the awards we have already made can be found on our website. Click HERE.

Rachael says 'we want to make sure that as many museum and gallery professionals as possible know about this scheme and benefit from it'.

While we want to encourage applications for relatively small grants to cover all aspects of curatorial research in its widest sense we also accept applications for £2,000 or over to support more extensive, ambitious or far-flung research projects.

Applications can also be made jointly by two or more curators who wish to work on a project together. The next deadline for large applications is on 15 May. Following this deadline there will only be one more for applications above £2,000 in 2013.

We would encourage any curators or researchers who have a project they would love to sink their teeth to get in touch to discuss their ideas, and for advice about how and when to apply for funding.

Pier Arts Centre were awarded a grant to visit Frieze Art Fair in London

Details about contacts are:

Rachael Browning: Programmes Manager (Projects)

E: RBrowning@artfund.org

D: 0207 225 4816

M: 07944 887 367

The Art Fund

Millais House

7 Cromwell Place

London

SW7 2JN

'From Object to Concept: Global Consumption & the Transformation of Ming Porcelain'

Lecture/Book Launch

Stacey Pierson: Senior Lecturer, SOAS, University of London

From Object to Concept -

Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain

When? 18:00-19:30, Thursday, 25th April 2013

Where? Museum of East Asian Art, 12 Bennett Street, Bath BA1 2QJ

Tickets? £4 for public; £2.50 for Museum Friends and students

Please book and pay by Tuesday, 23rd April by calling 01225 464640

Book cover

Ming porcelain is among the world’s finest cultural treasures. From ordinary household items to refined vessels for imperial use, porcelain became a dynamic force in domestic consumption in China and a valuable commodity in the export trade. In the modern era, it has reached unprecedented heights in art auctions and other avenues of global commerce.

This book examines the impact of consumption on porcelain of the Ming period and its transformation into a foreign cultural icon. The book begins with an examination of ways in which porcelain was appreciated in Ming China, followed by a discussion of encounters with Ming porcelain in several global regions including Europe and the Americas. The book also looks at the invention of the phrase and concept of 'the Ming vase' in English-speaking cultures, and concludes with a history of the transformation of Ming porcelain into works of art.

'The book has an impressive historical scope, from the 14th to the 21st century. Secondly, it ranges over a variety of interesting topics relevant to the history of a famous commodity - in addition to discussing the economic production, social use, and reception of Ming porcelain throughout the world, it has a novel and often amusing account on the treatment of Ming porcelain in modern popular UK and US culture. 

It presents an extensive coverage of recent English-language work on Chinese porcelain, and attempts to put the study of Ming, and by extension Chinese, porcelain in a wider conceptual framework, that of transcultural shifts in the use and meaning of art objects.'

Joseph P. McDermott, University of Cambridge

Visit to Fitzwilliam Museum Report

Claire Blakey of the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery reports:

On Monday 25th March 2013 the Ceramics Network joined forces with the Northern Ceramic Society for a visit to an exhibition of contemporary ceramics at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Despite the very un-spring like temperatures, there were 15 participants, from as far away as York and Bath. There was a good mixture of museum professionals, collectors, academics and enthusiasts. The exhibition, China's White Gold, is visually stunning and as most of the work was made especially for it, an amazing opportunity to see what potters in Jingdezhen are producing. This varies from ware made in traditional styles to pieces which are consciously contemporary in style and execution.

It includes a section on pieces which are reproductions of antique porcelain, shown alongside pieces from the Fitzwilliam's collection as comparatives. It also showcases work by international artists working in Jingdezhen: Felicity Aylieff, Takeshi Yasuda and Caroline Cheng.

One of the star pieces is a vase (Happy and Glorious) made by students of the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute to mark Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. This is decorated with auspicious symbols, including a dragon, lotus flowers and cranes.

The visit was made much more informative by the insights and observations of Victoria Avery and Tao-Tao Chang of the Fitzwilliam, who very kindly organised this. Our grateful thanks to them.

We are hoping to plan a ceramics study day at the Fitzwilliam in the near future so keep an eye out for it!

Images from the exhibition shown here ©Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Enlightenment & Discovery; The Ceramic Legacy

The Northern Ceramic Society (NCS) is pleased to announce its 2013 Summer School: 
Enlightenment & Discovery; The Ceramic Legacy

This four day seminar will present a series of lectures which will touch on the Enlightenment movement and explore the ways in which discoveries, scientific progress and enlightened thinking have influenced British ceramics. 

From the early experiments and development of British ceramics, through technological progress and social change, we will look at the processes and the pioneers who made it possible.

Speakers to include:

Gaye Blake-Roberts

Nick Berthoud

Rosie Cooke

Robin Emmerson

Graham Maclaren

Nick Panes

Deborah Skinner

Sue Taylor

Pam Woolliscroft

Further speakers to be confirmed.

Click here for our Events Page and scroll to 14-18 August 2013 for full details including fees, contact email and bursaries. 

Mysterious Ming at the Museum Princessehof

Mysterious Ming is an exhibition at the Museum Princessehof which runs until 27th October 2013. Below is information about the museum. Click here for full details on our exhibitions page and scroll to 24 March.

The Museum Princessehof collection is the most important collection of Asian ceramics in the Netherlands. It is housed in three historical buildings in Leeuwarden, the capital of the province of Friesland. They served in the eighteenth century as the residence of the German princess Maria-Louise von Hessen-Kassel (1688-1765), who married Johan Willem Friso of Oranje-Nassau (1687-1711) in 1709. A beautiful period room, decorated with Oriental porcelain displayed in the contemporary fashionable style of Daniel Marot and once the original dining room of Marie-Louise, has been preserved. It was only in the twentieth century that these building were used as a museum.

The museum was opened to the public in 1917 and was meant to foster the arts and crafts traditions which united Europe and Asia. The collections displayed there were based on the broad and profuse collections of a notary public from Leeuwarden, Nanne Ottema (1874-1955) and his wife Grietje Kingma (1873-1950). Already as a young man Nanne Ottema had developed a lively interest in a broad range of collectibles, which grew to some 25,000 to 30,000 items according to his own estimate. His interests lay particularly in Friesian cultural heritage and Asian ceramics. Nanne Ottema became the museum’s first director and continued in this position until his death in 1955. His interests in Chinese ceramics lead him to begin systematic research on this subject. In 1943, his Handbook of Chinese Ceramics was published.

With his passion and his broad network of friends, dealers and collector, he had amassed at that time some 4,000 pieces of Asian ceramics. A collection of Chinese ceramics from the Ming period (1368-1644) in particular is of outstanding quality and forms the core of the collection.

In 1973 Keramiekmuseum Princessehof reopened as a museum exclusively devoted to ceramics –Asian as well as European- as the Nationale Nederlands Keramiekmuseum, the Netherlands National Museum of Ceramics.

Spode Training Day Report

A full house on Monday February 25th 2013 for our Spode Training Day! It was a great opportunity for members to meet for this specialist day. Thank you to all who took part.

The Reading Room, Stoke-on-Trent City Archives,
ready for the delegates to look at Spode papers

The event took place at two venues in Stoke-on-Trent: Stoke-on-Trent City Archives and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. Thank you to Louise Ferriday, at the archives, and Claire Blakey and Miranda Goodby, at the museum, for organising access to archive material and pots and for facilitating the day. And thank you to Pam Woolliscroft who led both sessions.

Comments from delegates after the event included:

'We wanted to say how much we enjoyed the Training Day and felt privileged that we were given the opportunity to attend and see those wonderful pattern books and handle some of the pieces. It is fascinating making that connection across time by looking at the illustrations in the pattern books and being able to hold corresponding examples. The resource disc will be very useful. Thank you for such comprehensive and interesting presentations.'

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'Pam Woolliscroft’s extensive knowledge and great enthusiasm made it all very interesting.'

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'Thanks for a fascinating day on Monday at which I certainly learned a lot.'

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'I just wanted to thank you...for the Spode training session. I am fascinated every time!'

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Delegates studying a Spode pattern book

A wide range of Spode pots at the
Potteries Museum & Art Gallery ready for study

Delegates, museum staff and speaker
(the archivist is behind the camera - thank you!)
at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery