Biography

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Gordon Baldwin 

Gordon Baldwin is one of the most important ceramic sculptors of the last seventy years. Born in 1932 in Lincolnshire, he studied painting at the Lincoln School of Art and ceramics at the Central School of Art. He taught for most of his life: at Central, at Goldsmiths College and at the Royal College of Art. He also ran the art department at Eton College for many decades. His influence was enormous, both on several generations of ceramic artists, including the “New Ceramics” group and their successors, and on many of his students at Eton who then became artists, architects or joined the creative professions in other guises.

His work in the Fifties was figurative, informed by his teachers at central, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull. From the Sixties he started working on progressively more abstract forms, influenced primarily by the surrealists: Giacometti, Arp and Brancusi were crucial in the development of his sensibility. Over the years he became more interested in the notion of vessel and in that of contained space, exploring the idea of “inscape” and the relationship between form and painted surface. His interests and sources were very wide, touching on poetry and literature, modern and contemporary music and contemporary dance. Nature and the landscape of North Wales were also important reference points.


Gordon Baldwin exhibited extensively from the mid-fifties, both in the UK and in Continental Europe. Notable exhibitions include: “Gordon Baldwin: Mysterious Shapes” at the Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam in 1989 and “Gordon Baldwin: Objects For A Landscape” at the York Art Gallery in 2012 (traveling).

Curriculum Vitae

1949-50 Lincoln School of Art, Lincoln, UK

1950-53 Central School of Art and Design, London, UK

1958-1996 Ceramics and Sculpture Teacher, Eton College, Eton, UK.


Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions

2021 “Gordon Baldwin: Works 1971-2003”, Corvi-Mora, London

2018 Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2016 “Gordon Baldwin & Ewen Henderson”, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London

2016 “Gordon Baldwin & Ewen Henderson”, Eton College, Windsor

2015 Erskine, Hall & Coe, London

2013 “Vessels in White and Black”, Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2013 “Gordon Baldwin: Objects for a Landscape”, The Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, Plymouth

2012 Galerie Heller, Heidelberg

2012 “Gordon Baldwin: Objects for a Landscape”, York Art Gallery, York (touring)

2011 “Dark Water and Boulders Shouting”, Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2011“Gordon Baldwin: Excitations”, York Art Gallery, York

2009 Eton College, Windsor

2008 Ruthin Crafts Centre (with Nancy Baldwin), Ruthin

2008 Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

2005 Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

2004 Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2003 Barrett Marsden Gallery (with Nancy Baldwin), London

2003 Goed Werk Gallery (with Martin Smith), Belgium

2002 Galerie Marianne Heller (with Alison Britton), Heidelberg

2001 Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

2000 Galerie B15, Munich

1999 Barrett Marsden Gallery (with Nancy Baldwin), London

1998 Lynne Strover Gallery (with Nancy Baldwin), Cambridge Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

1997 Hart Gallery, London

1996 Galerie Besson, London Galerie Osiris, Brussels

1995 Crafts Council Shop at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London

1994 Hart Gallery, Linby

1994 Eton College (with Nancy Baldwin), Windsor

1993 Contemporary Applied Arts, London

1992 Alpha House Gallery, Sherborne

1990 Galerie Bowig, Hanover Hetjens Museum, Dusseldorf

1989 Contemporary Applied Arts, London

1989 Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam

1986 Solomon Gallery, London

1984 Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth

1983 “Gordon Baldwin: A Retrospective View”, Cleveland

1983 County Museum (touring retrospective), Middlesbrough

1981 Crafts Council Shop at the Victoria & Albert Museum,

1981 London Eton College, Windsor

1981 Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

1979 Eton College, Windsor

1979 Oxford Gallery (with Nancy Baldwin), Oxford

1978 Carmel College, Wallingford

1975 Oxford Gallery, Oxford

1974 British Crafts Centre (with Peter Simpson), London

1973 Salix (with Nancy Baldwin), Windsor

1970 Covent Garden Gallery, British Crafts Centre, London

1970 Oxford Gallery, Oxford

1965 Thames Gallery, Windsor Covent Garden Gallery, London

1964 Thames Gallery, Windsor

1962 Thames Gallery, Windsor

1960 Whibley Gallery, London

1958 Betty Horn, London

1958 Thames Gallery, Windsor


Group Exhibitions

2021 “Maker’s Eye”, Crafts Council Gallery, London

2019 Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2019 “Small Works, Great Artists”, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London

2019 “In the Form of a Bowl”, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London

2019 “20th Century British Ceramics” , Erskine, Hall & Coe, London

2018 Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2017 “Continuum: Light, Space and Time”, The Harwood

2017 Museum Of Art, University Of New Mexico, Taos, NM, USA

2017 “Twelve Artists”, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London “Material: Earth” Messum’s, London

2016 “Contemporary British Studio Ceramics: The Grainer Collection”, Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC, USA

2015 “Random Growth: Contemporary European Ceramics”, Sarah Myerscoughh Gallery, London

2014 “Classic & Contemporary Ceramics”, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London “Vase, Vessel, Void”, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin

2014 “Europe and Beyond”, The Coach House Gallery, Dublin

2014 Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2014 “Nancy Baldwin and Gordon Baldwin”, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2013 “Classic & Contemporary Ceramics”, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London, UK

2013 Cheongju Crafts Biennale, South Korea

2013 Marsden Woo Gallery, London, UK

2013 “Stark Contrasts: Black and White Ceramics from RAM's Collection” Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI, USA

2012 Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2011 “Sitting & Looking” Somerset House, London

2011 Marsden Woo Gallery, London

2009 Galerie Hélène Poirée, Paris

2009 “Gordon Baldwin and Nancy Baldwin”, Eton Applied Arts, Windsor

2008 “Ten Years Innit!”, Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

2005 “Organic Abstraction II”, Garth Clark Gallery, Long Island

2005 City Crafts Council Shop at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

2004 “Hands Across the Border”, Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin
2004 Galerie Sarver, Paris

2003 “British Ceramics: Five Artists”, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA

2002 “The Golden Age of Ceramics”, The Red Gallery, Southsea
2002 Gardiner Museum, Toronto

2002 “Subject (IV) – Objekt”, Deutsches Porzellanmuseum, Hohenberg

2000 Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

1999 Barrett Marsden at Galerie Binnen, Amsterdam

1999 “Commemorative Mugs for the Millennium”, Galerie Besson, London

1999 “25 Years of Contemporary Craft”, Crafts Council Shop at the V&A, London

1998 “In A Strange Land”, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

1996 “The Jerwood Ceramic Prize Exhibition”, Crafts Council, London

1996 “Hand To Hand” Contemporary Applied Arts, London

1996 Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam

1995 “Pandora's Box”, Crafts Council, London

1994 Inscape (tour to Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery), Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham

1994 “The Raw and The Cooked”, The Barbican Arts Centre, London (Travelled to Japan)

1993 Oxford Gallery, Oxford
“The Raw and the Cooked”, Barbican Art Gallery, London

1993 “Ceramics from the Eagle Collection”, Shipley Museum & Art Gallery, Gateshead

1992 “British and Dutch Ceramics”, Rufford Craft Centre, Rufford

1992 Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main

1991 “Colours of the Earth - Twentieth Century British Ceramics”, British Council (touring)

1991 “Fourteen British Potters”, Galleria Il Giardino Dell'Arte, Bologna

1991 “The Abstract Vessel”, Oriel Gallery, Cardiff, Wales

1991 “Beyond the Dovetail”, Crafts Council, London

1991 “British Ceramics” Bellas Artes, Santa Fe, NM, USA

1991 International Ceramics, South Korea “Configura I: Kunst In Europa” Erfurt, Germany

1990 Charlotte Hennig Gallery, Darmstadt St. James Gallery, Bath

1990 “Space and Form”, Rufford Craft Centre, Newark, Nottinghamshire

1989 Sheila Harrison Fine Art, London

1989 L’Europe des Céramistes, St. Germain d’Auxerre

1988 “London/Amsterdam: new art objects from Britain and Holland” Crafts Council Gallery, London

1987 Palazzo Agostinelli, Bassano del Grappa

1986 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim

1986 American and British Ceramics, Smith Gallery, London

1985 “British Ceramics”, Keramion, Frechen

1985 “British and German Ceramics”, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

1984 “8 Ceramicists”, British Crafts Centre, London

1984 “Artist Potters Now”, Museum of Oxford, Oxford, UK (touring)

1981 “British Ceramics and Textiles”, Scharpoord Arts Centre, Knokke-Heist

1981 Crafts Council Shop at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

1980 Charlotte Hennig Gallery, Darmstadt

1980 “Image and Idea”, British Council tour, UK

1979 Kölner Keramic Galerie, Cologne Takashimaya Gallery, Tokyo

1978 “The State of Clay”, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Sunderland (touring)

1978 “British Potters”, Graham Gallery, New York

1977 Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton

1977 “British Potters”, Graham Gallery, New York

1976 “British Ceramics”, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania

1976 “7 in 76”, Portsmouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Portsmouth

1975 Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

1973 “The Craftsman's Art”, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

1973 “British Twentieth Century Ceramics”, Liverpool

1972 “International Ceramics”, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

1972 Faenza International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza

1972 “New Directions”, Oxford Gallery, Oxford

1971 “Modern British Ceramics”, Koster Gallery,
Monchengladbach, Germany

1969 Seibu Gallery, Tokyo

1966 “Structure 66”, Grosvenor Gallery, London

1964 “September International”, Grosvenor Gallery, London

1963 Leicester Galleries, London

1961 Primavera Gallery, London


Awards

2000 Honorary Doctorate, Royal College of Art, London

1996 Shortlisted for the Jerwood Ceramic Prize

1992 Awarded OBE


Public Collections

Abbot Hall, Kendal
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Buckinghamshire County Museum
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
USA Contemporary Art Society
London Crafts Council, London
Greater London Council
Hanover City Museum, Germany
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, Leeuwarden, Netherlands
Keramion, Frechen, Germany
Kettle's Yard, Cambridge
Leicestershire Schools and Colleges Collection, Leicester
Los Angeles County Museum, USA
Melbourne City Art Gallery. Australia
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) Gallery, Oldham
Musée Bellerive, Zurich, Switzerland
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Montreal, Canada
Museu de Ceramica, Barcelona, Spain
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, USA
Museum fur Moderne Keramik, Deidesheim, Germany
Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway
Octagon Centre, Ames, IW, USA
Paisley Museum and Art Gallery, Paisley
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Portsmouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Portsmouth
Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent
Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin, USA
Scharpoord Arts Centre, Knokke-Heist, Belgium
Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan
Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
Southampton City Art Gallery
Southern Arts, Winchester
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Usher Gallery, Lincoln
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Wurttembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, Germany
York Art Gallery, York