![TEAPOT](http://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/media/w540h540/collection/whiting_geoffrey_c552_teapot_1958.jpg)
© The Artist's Estate
TEAPOT c. 1956
Geoffrey Whiting (1919 – 1988)
Details
- Dimension
- HEIGHT 12.9 CM
- Media
- STONEWARE, WITH BROWN IRON GLAZE
- Accession number
- C551
Summary
Whiting (1919–1998) was born in Stocksfield, Northumberland and trained to be an architect. On a visit to India he stayed with a family of potters and it was from them that he learnt his craft. On his return to England he set up a pottery in Worcestershire, later moving to Canterbury in 1972. Teapots are extraordinarily difficult to make: every component is made separately (as potters say ‘thrown in bits’) then assembled and fired in the kiln; the glaze is subsequently painted on and the whole placed in the kiln again. This teapot, with its flattened yet sleek shape, dispels the idea that a rural pottery had no design connections with the 20th century.
My Yard, British Council 2009
Glossary
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Craft
The creation of handmade objects intended to be both useful and decorative.
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Design
The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.
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Glaze
Vitreous coatings applied to pottery to make objects watertight and as a form of decoration. Also a glaze can be a thin, translucent or transparent coating applied to the surface of a painting to modify the colour tones. Glazes may also be applied on top of one another as a means of creating a sense of depth and translucency.