Contemporary Ceramics

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Contemporary Ceramics

Contemporary Ceramics is the leading gallery for British studio ceramics.
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Contemporary Ceramics Centre is a retail gallery showcasing the best of British studio ceramics. Situated opposite the British Museum, the gallery has an annual exhibition program featuring national and international artists. With a regularly changing display, it is always possible to see and buy a wide range of work from functional tableware to individual collector's pieces.

27/08/2026

New work from Ania Perkowska has just arrived at the gallery.

Ania grew up in communist Poland, surrounded by stark grey concrete — brutal, imposing, unavoidable. It's that world that underpins everything she makes. Her brown stripy bowls draw from the same rawness, finding beauty in restriction and simplicity of form. Dark meets light, rough meets smooth, drabness conceals drama.

From a distance the work appears quiet. It's only when you get closer, when you pick a piece up and hold it, that the detail reveals itself. The texture. The surface. The weight of it in your hand.

Available now in a range of sizes from £75. Shop via the link below.
https://buff.ly/2d9OsBF

24/08/2026

Just arrived!
New work from Jennifer Hall and Jill Fanshawe Kato.

Jennifer Hall works from her studio on the north coast of Pembrokeshire, throwing domestic ware in small batches on a geared kick wheel. Each piece is decorated with slips and oxides using slip trailing, brushwork and sgraffito: fish, circles, stripes... in the warm, earthy tones that earthenware does best. Her aim is simple and quietly ambitious: pots that enrich the daily rituals surrounding food and drink.

Jill Fanshawe Kato has established a studio in Devon, with forests and wilderness on her doorstep. She trained in Japan in the 1970s, studying Karatsu pottery in Tokyo and working with renowned potter Ryoji Koie in Gifu Prefecture - and that deep connection to the animistic world of fire and clay runs through everything she makes. Her new work is alive with the natural world: hares, avocets, peacocks, swallows, grasshoppers, guinea fowl. Hand-built, coil and slab, imagery in coloured slips, fired to 1270°c.

Two makers, two landscapes, both making work that belongs on your table.

Shop both collections at the link below.
https://buff.ly/51MDUkw

22/08/2026

Saturday Spotlight: Hannah McAndrew

"Britain boasts a particularly fine tradition of slipware pottery. I draw on this rich heritage and use it as the basis for my own work, where I attempt to capture the essence of these historical pieces, reinterpreted in a contemporary style." Hannah McAndrew

Hannah McAndrew enjoys the challenge of creating a piece that will not simply perform its task well but will be attractive to the eye and instil a sense of comfort and warmth to its surroundings. Her pots are thrown in red earthenware clay and decorated using coloured slips. The decoration is applied to the surface of the pot by use of a slip trailer, while the surface is still glistening wet. Sometimes she allows the slipped surface to dry a little, so that she can inscribe motifs with sgraffito lines. These slips are subsequently enhanced by the addition of a layer of rich honey glaze.

Follow the link to discover more https://buff.ly/o0h49IY

21/08/2026

What a wonderful preview evening. Accidental Compositions opened on Wednesday to a busy and lively gallery! Thank you to everyone who joined us to celebrate Sophie MacCarthy's new exhibition.

It was lovely to see colleagues from her studio there to support Sophie. Conversations were flowing, and the work was finding new homes.

If you weren't able to make the preview, the exhibition runs until Saturday 12th September at Contemporary Ceramics. We warmly invite you to come and see the work in person.

Exhibition pieces are also available to view and purchase online now https://buff.ly/ow8HpL9

Contemporary Ceramics
63 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3BF

19/08/2026

Tonight, Accidental Compositions opens at Contemporary Ceramics.

In a career spanning nearly 50 years, ceramicist Sophie MacCarthy has developed a unique and distinctive personal style. Through her sometimes subtle and other times bold use of coloured slips, painterly brushwork, stencils and wax-resist, she evokes the colours, forms and movements of the passing seasons.

Often focusing on the ground, she finds beauty in the accidental compositions created by wind-blown leaves, stalks and detritus sometimes gathered around a storm drain or scattered over concrete and tarmac, juxtaposing the vibrant colours of the natural world with the gritty textures of the urban environment.

“She has a poetic insight into the natural world” David Whiting

Preview: 6-8pm this evening
63 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3BF

We hope to see you there.
Follow the link for more details https://buff.ly/ow8HpL9

18/08/2026

We are delighted to invite you to the preview of Accidental Compositions, a new solo exhibition of slip-painted earthenware ceramics by Sophie MacCarthy.

Wednesday 19th August, 6–8pm
Contemporary Ceramics, 63 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3BF

In a career spanning nearly 50 years, ceramicist Sophie MacCarthy has developed a unique and distinctive personal style. Through her sometimes subtle and other times bold use of coloured slips, painterly brushwork, stencils and wax-resist, she evokes the colours, forms and movements of the passing seasons.

Often focusing on the ground, she finds beauty in the accidental compositions created by wind-blown leaves, stalks and detritus sometimes gathered around a storm drain or scattered over concrete and tarmac, juxtaposing the vibrant colours of the natural world with the gritty textures of the urban environment.

"She has a poetic insight into the natural world." - David Whiting

The exhibition opens in gallery and online from Thursday 20th August and runs until Saturday 12th September 2026.

We hope to see you at the preview.

Discover more here https://buff.ly/wLZPsaK

17/08/2026

Accidental Compositions, a new solo exhibition by Sophie MacCarthy opens this Wednesday at Contemporary Ceramics.

Join us for the preview - Wednesday 19th August, 6-8pm at 63 Great Russell Street, WC1B 3BF.

Sophie finds beauty in the accidental compositions created by wind blown leaves, stalks and detritus sometimes gathered around a storm drain or scattered across tarmac, juxtaposing the vibrant colours of the natural world with the gritty textures of the urban environment.

Follow the link to discover more https://buff.ly/wLZPsaK

15/08/2026

Saturday Spotlight: Ken & Valerie Shelton

Ken makes the pots. Valerie paints them. Although this sounds simple, it really isn't.

Ken learned to throw with potters in Bristol and London, and spent years working across the craft ceramics industry, organising seminars with some of Britain's best-known makers. All that time spent watching, absorbing, observing technique. Ken's knowledge and experience shows in the quiet confidence of his forms.

Valerie studied fashion and textiles at Brighton and Bristol art colleges, and has spent a lifetime painting. When she works on Ken's fired ceramics, she paints freely, sometimes sketching a loose design first, sometimes not. Colours are mixed by eye, and she often loads two colours onto the brush at once, a technique that gives each piece a depth and vitality you can't get any other way.

Every piece is unique. Not as a selling point, simply because that's what happens when two people bring a lifetime of craft to a single object.

Shop their work at the link below.
https://buff.ly/ZW2kDov

Address

63 Great Russell Street
London
WC1B3BF

Telephone

+442072429644

Website

https://www.contemporaryceramics.uk/

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