Lot 11: JAMES TOWER

JAMES TOWER 1919-1988 LEAF FORM I signed glazed ceramic height: 56cm.; 22in. Executed in 1985, the present work is listed as Opus 192.

London, Gimpel Fils, where acquired by the present owner, 18th August 1985

Born in Sheerness, Kent, Tower studied as an artist at the Royal Academy and the Slade, moving towards ceramics as a result of contact with William Newlands. He began teaching at Bath Academy of Art at Corsham Court in 1949 during a period when it was at the forefront of art education in Britain, and when his colleagues included many significant figures of the avant-garde, including William Scott, Peter Lanyon and Kenneth Armitage. Tower began exhibiting with Gimpel Fils, placing himself very clearly with the 'art' rather than 'craft' world, and indeed for long periods focussed his attention on sculpture. Considering himself an artist working in clay, and whose work offers notable parallels with the painters and sculptors of his generation, he has nevertheless been an influence on younger potters such as Elizabeth Fritsch and the distinctive flattened forms of his tin-glazed ceramics retain a feeling of modernity and spontaneity that belies their age.