Elizabeth Fritsch


Elizabeth Fritsch MA CBE is a British studio potter who was born into a Welsh family on the Shropshire border. Her innovative hand built and painted pots are often influenced by music, painting, literature and architecture.

Biography

Elizabeth Fritsch is a much admired and influential British studio potter and ceramic artist. She is recognised extensively for her fine hand built coiling techniques, ceramic form, optical effects and surface design which, are usually hand painted with coloured slips. The works are biscuit fired and often re-fired a number of times at high temperatures through various stages. Each Fritsch pot is unique, individual and distinctive. They are usually displayed in selected groups and themes set to the artist’s requirements.
Fritsch initially studied at the Birmingham School of Music studying harp, and then piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1958 to 1964; but she later took up ceramics under Hans Coper and Eduardo Paolozzi at the Royal College of Art from 1968 to 1971. In the seventies Fritsch, along with other ceramicists including Alison Britton, Carol McNicoll, Jacqueline Poncelet, developing out of the Royal College of Art, under Prof. David Queensbury, formed an important shift and influence in British ceramic art, breaking away from the more traditional forms, design and function of the more utilitarian ceramics that had preceded.
In 1985, Fritsch set up a studio in London. Since her first show in 1972, Fritsch has had a number of solo shows. In 1996 and 2001 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Ceramics. Fritsch's work is represented in major art collections and museums in more than nine countries and her work is represented in major British art museum collections. A major retrospective was held at the National Museum Cardiff, Wales, in 2010, featuring a complete range of her most significant studio pottery and recent pieces where, she consideres "the space between the second and third dimensions", a concept she first described as "two-and-a-half dimensions". Dynamic Structures: Painted Vessels also marked her 70th birthday.

Awards

  1. The Wall Street Journal , 18 May 2006
  2. Moira Vincentelli Women & Ceramics, Gendered Vessels, Manchester University Press, 2000, p. 249.,
  3. Garth Clark The Potter's Art, Phaidon 1995, pp. 200–201.,
  4. John Houston The Abstract Pot forms of expression and decoration by nine artist potters, Bellew Publishing, 1991.
  5. Fischer Fine Art Nine Potters: Bernard Leach, Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, Michael Cardew, Hans Coper, Lucie Rie, Elizabeth Fritsch, Ewen Henderson, Elizabeth Raeburn, Claudi Casanovas, Catalogue of an exhibition held at Fisher Fine Art, 1986. ASIN B001ON0RX2
  6. John Russell Taylor, "Elizabeth Fritsch: Pots About Music" Ceramic Review, 58 Jul/Aug 1979 pgs 30-33.
  7. J.D.H. Catleugh "Recent Pots: Improvisations from Earth to Air", Ceramic Review, 44 Mar/Apr 1977 pg 7.

    Broadcasts and podcasts

, , On 6 July 2004, National Life Stories Collection: Crafts' Lives
BBC Private Passions, , On 14 April 2001 Michael Berkeley's guest was Elizabeth Fritsch
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, , by Elizabeth Fritsch Video Podcasts