Ceramic Bowl by British Studio Potter John Ward

A stoneware bowl with radiating glazed and banded construction by British studio ceramist John Ward (1938) circa 1970-80s. The bowl might be an early piece when the artist started to use hand building technique to join different sections of the vessel. It is particularly obvious on this piece that the bowl was contracted in such a manner. The artist applied a mesmerizing pattern of glaze in bluish color, both radiating and concentric that somehow gives a visual of tie dye. The surface is marked with a fine and intentionally irregular texture, a signature style of the artist. The base is branded with the artist's iconic seal and initial "JW".
John Ward’s ceramic artwork is found in the permanent collections of many leading art museums including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Biography (courtesy of Oxford Ceramic Gallery):
"The leading hand-builder John Ward was born in 1938 and trained at Camberwell College of Arts in the 1960s. He is one of a number of significant modern potters to have concentrated on the pared down individual vessel form, most particularly the bowl, as a touchstone for exploration. His generally simple work has been augmented by more complex structures, the shapes cut and altered, perhaps with abstract, geometric decoration and cut-away rims that give some of his pieces an architectural quality. In addition to urban surfaces, his work evokes honed natural forms, the kind of bonier, elemental landscape he has lived in since he moved close to the Welsh coast in 1979. His best pots speak eloquently of the limitless language of the bowl and globular jar, their sculptural and metaphorical resonances."