MOVING FORWARD: Ben Williams
/Ben Williams - Trustee 2011 - present
Albarello (medicinal jar) with brushed decoration, 1912. Bernard Leach (2013.26)
My selection is an attempt in part to demonstrate the great depth and variety of objects within a core area of the Crafts Study Centre’s expansive collection. This diversity of material surrounding just one thread of many stories told is essential to allow serious study and enables us to gain valuable insight into not only the work itself, but the deeply personal circumstances and full world situation into which it was born. In my experience CSC is almost unique in its ability to provide this essential context to objects.
The selection also reflects my own personal fascination with the untold and frequently complex journeys that these objects take before they ‘find’ their final resting place amongst friends and family within the safe walls of CSC.
I use the word ‘find’ but that is vastly oversimplifying the process! Adding an acquisition is rarely straightforward. It starts with the ongoing work in creating the natural home for a target object, so the groundwork done during the first 50 years of acquisitions, way before my involvement, makes these more recent acquisitions possible. That extraordinary early collecting allows cordial discussions to be had now with potential donors and sellers in the knowledge and confidence that what the CSC is able to do for the object and vice-versa is a highly complementary solution.
The target object has to be fully understood to be appreciated, successfully tuning in to an artwork is often more about looking at and absorbing everything else surrounding it before looking at the object itself, it cannot be contemplated cold and CSC’s unique collection allows us to warm up and prepare for that process. It provides deep context, that word again.
Etching, In a Tokyo Park, 1918. Bernard Leach -(2013.27)
Sometimes it is necessary to seek funding, this is time consuming and emotionally tiring, it requires great skill on behalf of those writing the bid, deep technical knowledge and input from many sources and with no guarantee of success.
In the acquisition of each of these selected works I played just a small part in nudging them in CSC’s direction. So those conversations, strategies, thought processes and stories that arose as a result are ingested and become part of my own personal experience of the object.
Pottery Notes - Bernard Leach. Photographs Greta Bertram.
Ben Williams is an advisor, valuer and broker in modern and contemporary British, Japanese and American studio ceramics.
