Provenance:
Ombersley Gallery, June 2001
Purchased from the above by Peter Dingley
His Sale, Mallam’s Oxford, Design & Modern Art, 5 December 2019, lot 41
Jim Malone has been a notable figure in British ceramics since the late 1970s, working within the Anglo-Japanese tradition, and his work has an honest and open quality which connects directly with the viewer. These are pots to use but also to admire, a manifestation of many of the 'mingei' ideas that influenced Bernard Leach, the pioneer of craft pottery in Britain. Working with a repertoire of forms that connect to the history of studio ceramics, and using brushed and impressed decoration alongside a range of traditional glazes, Malone's work has a timeless yet contemporary quality.
A bowl such as this one does not hide its materials, the method of manufacture or its hand-made quality, but it also allows these elements to shine forth and give it a quality beyond that required by pure function.
This bowl bears the mark of the Ainstable Pottery, Cumbria, Malone's studio from 1984 to 2001