Irish Arts Review

Fire and EarthAuthor(s): Peter LambSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 24, Irish Craft 2007: The Annual Craft Edition of the"Irish Arts Review" (2007), pp. 12-13Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25503664 .

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40

P-P

Fire and Earth Peter Lamb reviews the career of John ffrench, the

subject of the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Exhibition

at the National Craft Gallery, Kilkenny

It has always been the policy of the

Crafts Council of Ireland to hold

group shows rather than solo ones.

This is partly because it is invidious to

pick out one individual from the many,

and partly because it makes economic

sense to spread expenses over several

exhibitors. However the Crafts Council

of Ireland has recently had a change of

heart; it has put on its first ever one

man show this year with the work of

Irish potter, John ffrench (born 1928),

at the National Craft Gallery, Kilkenny.

Doing this involved the Crafts Council of

Ireland in a 'change of religion' -

according to former CEO, Les Reed -

who introduced the concept of a

'lifetime achievement' exhibition to

enable it to happen.

Although the ffrench show is the

Crafts Council of Ireland's first solo

exhibition, it is not its first

retrospective: just over two years ago

it hosted a joint one for Sonja

Landweer and Rudolf Heltzel. Solo

shows are not unusual in other

jurisdictions: the Crafts Council in

Britain, for example, has held several in

the past five years, including one in

2004, for the English ceramic artist,

Richard Slee, then in his fifties, which

celebrated his achievements of the

previous thirty years.

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THE ANNUAL CRAFT EDITION OF THE IRISH ARTS REVIEW 200?

The fundamental concern of the

Crafts Council of Ireland is to find good

exhibitions and it expects that there

will be more solo ones from time to

time in the future; in fact it is already

considering possible names. The

criteria for selection would include the

importance of the craftsperson's

contribution to their art and the

educational value such an exhibition

might have. While age would never be a

consideration, it would be essential

that the candidate had a sufficiently

large body of work to fill the gallery.

However, as the number of

craftspeople capable of doing this is

limited, it is unlikely that solo shows

will become an annual fixture.

Ffrench was chosen for the first solo

show because of his fascinating story

and his significant contribution to the

development of Irish ceramics. His long

career has run from his student days in

1940s Dublin when there were

practically no potters working in this

country. In the 1940s, ceramics were

not even taught in the National College

of Art, and ffrench was obliged to go to

Italy to acquire his pottery skills. His

unique contribution to Ireland has been

in the importation of the bright colours

of the Mediterranean as well as the

experimental approach to clay practised

in Italy and France at that time. The

references, in ffrench's work, to

countries and cultures that he

encountered in his travels have always

made his pots excitingly cosmopolitan

and stimulating. He is in effect one of

the earliest pioneers of contemporary

ceramics in this country, and may be

said to have initiated a trend that has

subsequently been gloriously

developed by other ceramicists.

Because of these factors and due to

the availability of a substantial body of

work, it has been possible to fill the

National Craft Gallery with examples

from all periods of ffrench's life,

including work done in Italy, India,

Ireland and America. The exhibition

highlights the variety of his clay work,

ranging from art pieces exhibited in

galleries to semi-industrial ones made in

the Arklow Pottery. It also draws

attention to his graphic work by

including a wall of his silk-screen prints

(calendars and greeting cards) made

over the past thirty-five years. The entire

show provides a feast of colour, and one

comes away from it exhiliarated.

In the absence of a good reference

work on Irish ceramics of the 20th

century, this kind of show also has a

real educational value, in that it helps to

illustrate, for the new generation of

potters and collectors, how things

developed in the past, and we must

thank the Crafts Council of Ireland for

the richly illustrated catalogue.

Peter Lamb is an Irish ceramic collector who has

recently completed an in-depth study of the life and

work of John ffrench.

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