Artist Focus: John Maltby

Born in Lincolnshire, England, 1936. Studied sculpture at Leicester and Goldsmiths College, London. He taught painting and sculpture for two and a half years before working with David Leach at Bovey Tracey in 1962.

In 1964 he started his own pottery at Stoneshill, Devonshire, England, making stoneware, earthenware and porcelain.

He has lectured widely in England and has been a frequent visiting lecturer at Bergen Kunsthandverksskole, Norway. In May 1987 he was the sole judge of the International Pottery Competition (Fletcher Challenge Award) in Auckland, New Zealand. July 1987 he conducted a Seminar in Berne, Switzerland, "Creativity Developing a Personal Style" which was repeated in Basle in 1988. In 1989 he was invited by Galerie Handwerk, Munich, to give a lecture and open the exhibtiion English Ceramics. He has also published articles in Ceramic Review (nos. 29, 78, 102) and Crafts (no. 80: 'The Leach Tradition').

Awards include:
1966 Craft Award, Gwen Mullins Trust
1975 Gold Medal, Faenza, International Exhibitions of Contemporary Ceramics, Italy.
1981 Craft Award, South West Arts.
1986 Major Craft Fellowship, South West Arts
He is a member of the Craftsman Potters Assosication of Great Britain, and the British Crafts Centre and is an advisor to the Leach Archive at the Holbourne of Menstrie Museum, Bath, England.

"Normally my ceramics are 'about', English landscape and architecture: they derive their forms and surfaces from a subconscious sense of our history - 'this sea-washed country where the air is never quite free from mist; where the light of the sun is more often pale and pearly than it is fiery. This atmosphere has sunk into our souls. It has affected our art as it affects our life - but it has not resulted in a congenital softness of vision' (Quotation from John Piper, 'British Romantic Artists, 1943).
Works from the 'Kings, Queens and Angels: Such titles are the very fabric of our English Heritage. They are timeless and yet are a microcosm of our own world. They are ancient players; symbols of our dignity and of our fallibility and they are the myths and the essence of our Englishness".