Victoria and Albert Museum – Ceramics Galleries

V&A Ceramic Collection is Redisplayed in Modern Exhibition Area

Sep 4, 2009

Several new galleries, part of V&A's FuturePlan, will display the museum's comprehensive collection of world-wide ceramics in innovative and accessible exhibition spaces.

In a recent press release the museum announced the opening of Phase 1 of the Ceramics Galleries. (Phase 2 will open in 2010.) The designers (Phase 1, Stanton Williams, Phase 2, OPERA Amsterdam) have liaised with specialist consultants and curators to create accessible and innovative exhibition areas in which to redisplay the museum's world-class collection of ceramics.

The V&A Ceramics Collection

The V&A's ceramic collection is one of the world's finest ranging from Italian Renaissance maiolica and European tin-glazed earthenwares to French and Spanish ceramics. It features English 18th, 19th and 20th century ceramics, as well as Middle Eastern, Chinese and contemporary pieces from around the world.

Ceramic Galleries – Phase 1

It has been at least one hundred years since the museum re-organised the showing of its ceramic collection. The new galleries will offer a series of exhibition areas housing permanent and temporary displays, the first of which will be Objects of Luxury – 18th-century French porcelain from leading production centres of the time.

The displays will provide an encyclopaedic glimpse into the history of ceramics around the world and will feature 3,000 items dating from 2500 BC to the 21st Century. Also on view will be the materials and techniques used by different cultures throughout history. The links between these varying traditions will also be explored.

Two galleries show the 20th-century collections. One feature items produced in major factories by designers such as Josiah Wedgewood, Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliff. The second displays pieces from the independent studios of designers such as Bernard Leach and Lucie Rie. Rie's studio has been preserved and reconstructed in the gallery.

Another space is devoted to Architectural Ceramics including large-scale items such as Portuguese Baroque tile panels and a 15th-century tiled heating stove from Germany.

The final gallery features contemporary ceramics by Danish artist Anders Ruhwald (1974-) together with British artists, Martin Smith (1950-), and Edmund de Waal (1964-). The exhibition includes a site-specific installation by de Waal entitled Signs and Wonders.

There is also a workshop area where visitors are encouraged to design, decorate and fire their own creations.

Ceramic Galleries – Phase 2

Phase 2, opening in 2010, will feature a further 26,500 items revealing the depth and breadth of the museum's collections. The displays will be very different from those of Phase 1. The exhibition will explore the history of ceramics, by place and method of production, type of ware, date, culture and country. Phase 2 will include a Study Centre where students can study and handle items from the collection.

Highlights of Phase 1 will include The Peixoto Ewer, a Chinese ewer from the Ming Dynasty – 1522-66. The jug is marked 'Made in the Jiajing reign period of Great Ming'. Ewers like this were originally manufactured for the Middle-Eastern Market and this one may have been brought to Europe by the Portuguese merchant Antonio Peixoto, whose arms its bears.

Auguste Delaherche – Copper-Glazed Vase

Also on display is a French stoneware copper-glazed vase by Auguste Delaherche (1857-1940). The copper glaze imitates those found on 18th-century porcelains popular in the Chinese court. This type of glaze is difficult to reproduce and the results were often unpredictable.

Included in the display is a vase by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Artist at his Easel was produced in 1954 at the Madoura Pottery at Vallauris, southern France. Picasso created many of these imaginative pottery items at Vallauris from 1946 onwards and his influence is evident in the ceramics of the 1950s.

The exhibition will also include a reconstruction of Dame Lucie Rie's London studio, previously located at 18 Albion Mews near Hyde Park. Austrian-born Rie (1902-1995) was one of the 20th Century's finest potters. The studio has been moved and reconstructed at the V&A. Film footage showing the artist at work is also being shown.

A fully illustrated 144-page hardback publication, entitled Masterpieces of World Ceramics, accompanies the new galleries. The catalogue (ISBN 9781851775279) is edited by Reino Liefkes and Hilary Young and is priced at £30.00.

The Ceramics Galleries will open on 18th September 2009 and the V&A's press release gives further information.

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The copyright of the article Victoria and Albert Museum – Ceramics Galleries in Permanent Art Exhibits is owned by Frances Spiegel. Permission to republish Victoria and Albert Museum – Ceramics Galleries in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.