Ruth Duckworth at Ruthin
Ruthin Craft Centre celebrates the 90th anniversary of ceramist Ruth Duckworth with a major exhibition of her work (13 June – 6 September)
Ruth Duckworth is one of the greats of 20th-century applied art, her work claimed by both the fine art world and the ceramics fraternity. The current show has been curated by her American dealer Thea Burger who says: ‘I don’t consider her a potter as in my mind she is a sculptor.’ However, the exhibition is on at Ruthin, a gallery with its feet firmly in the craft world. And the work easily straddles the two worlds – Duckworth works in ceramic to create strikingly sculptural pieces influenced by the forms of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. For Burger the fascination lies in the fact that she creates these new forms using porcelain and stoneware: ‘I am totally interested in her creativity and ability to use clay as a sculptor would use other materials.
Duckworth has lived in the US for the last forty-five years, but she trained in UK, where she moved after fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s. She studied sculpture at Liverpool School of Art, then went to art school in London after a stint as a war-time munitions worker, and finally, on the advice of Lucie Rie, returned to school once more to study glazes. The show follows her development including some of her small-scale ceramics as will as the large murals and figurative sculptures.
www.ruthincraftcentre.org.uk
