Ceramics that Contain: Marea Gazzard and Elizabeth Fritsch

Emily Donehue 15427129

Hanaor Cigalle in his writing The Essential Vessel suggests that objects use to be made ‘as a way of feeling our way into the world, but now it could be objects that lead us back to ourselves’[1]. This is an interesting framework in which we can investigate the works of two contemporary ceramic artists, Australian born Marea Gazzard (1928 – 2013)[2] and Englishwomen Elizabeth Fritsch (1940 -)[3], who have predominantly focused their practice on containment and who where both influenced by British ceramicist Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.

 In this essay I will contend that Marea Gazzard's ceramics, evoked by her surface texture and forms, lead us back to ourselves, to a sense of place and homecoming. I will then look at Elizabeth Fritsch work and suggest that through surface and form she creates containers that speak of ideas that help us to feel our way out into the world. I will then examine how both women where influenced by the modern British ceramic tradition and in turn how they have influenced my work.

2. Marea Gazzard, Wide Shields One and Two, stoneware, 1970

When we look at Marea Gazzard's container ‘Wide Shields One and Two’, made in 1970 whilst living in Sydney, one is struck by the timelessness of the work. These hand built stoneware containers were part of a series of forms that Gazzard called Boulder, Dial, Torso and Shield, and they where influenced by her observation of objects in the natural history museum of Sydney[4]. The overall form of ‘Wide Shield One and Two’ is a narrow asymmetrical oval shape container with a narrow base that swells in the middle and comes in again towards the neck of the vessel forming an overall triangular shape, reminiscent of ancient tools, fossils, a tooth or a rock. 

3. Marea Gazzard, sperical pots, eathenware, 1963

The interior has a smooth shiny dark glaze similar to Gazzard's ‘Spherical’ pots of 1963, which had a dark leadless glaze[5]. The dark shiny interior of ‘Wide Shields One and Two’ creates a stark contrast with the exterior surface, which is textured and matt. Covered with rough repetitive marks and colored yellow ochre and burnt red from applied oxides, the vessels evoke memories of sand stone and the ancient geology of Australia. The color and form of these containers create a sense of the familiar and of timelessness, reminding the viewer of the land on which we dwell and must return to, achieving “archaic presence and primitive immediacy within the thin walls of organic modernism.”[6] 

4. Marea Gazzard, Dial, stoneware, 1969

The gestural marks are reminders of touch and wear, allowing the viewer to reflect on the history of mark making and the hand of the maker. These containers, with the earth colors, the organic form and the gestural marks brings the viewer inward, allowing us to reflect upon the ground in which we stand, the ancient timeline in which we belong, a container which leads us back to the memory of ourselves. Other contemporary ceramic artist who employs similar organic forms is Joan Campbell, Sara Radstone and Claudi Casanovas.[7],[8]

6. Joan Campbell, Plaque, earthenware, 1982

5. Sara Radstone, vase, stoneware, 1983

Elizabeth Fritsch approaches her vessels from a different angle “treating the entire pot as an image or a drawing”[9]. Her work establishes connections between Renaissance art, mathematics, music, modernist painting and Islamic design, taking the viewer on a journey into the world of ideas. When we look at her containers we are struck by their beauty and ingenuity, her work lays bare that the “route to discovery, the creation of the art which reveals beauty, is multifaceted and dependent upon many various sources and ideas”[10]. 

7. Elizabeth Fritsch, back view of Quantum Pocket

8. Elizabeth Fritsch, Quantum Pocket, stoneware, 1984

By looking at Fritsch’s hand built stoneware piece 'Quantum Pocket', 1984, whose form is a flattened disc urn painted with matt colored slipware, a vessel that is flat but appears to be full, we can begin to connect these influences. She achieves the illusion of volume on her surface designs by using one point perspective, a Renaissance discovery that employs mathematics and geometry, to convince the viewer of the fictive space, treating the vessel as an image, an illusion of a vessel.[11], [12] The use of geometric design furthers this illusion, influenced by Islamic art and modernist painter Kandinsky; Fritsch draws connections between music and visual art.[13] 

10. Elizabeth Fritsch, Cubist Jar, stoneware, 1984

9. Elizabeth Fritsch, Cubist Jar, stoneware, 1984

Fritsch also achieves optical illusion in her forms, creating the back of the container higher than the front and then drawing in the illusion of the circular shaped lip.On her 'Cubist Jar' 1984, she plays with the idea of volume and space by painting a three dimensional cube onto two sides of the vase. The surface of her containers are matt, the work itself is light and thin, and the forms are recognizably jugs and pots but the objects themselves bridge the divide between sculpture and painting. Because of this her ceramics becomes objects for the viewer to feel their way into the world.[14] Other contemporary artist who has been influenced by Fritsch and also treats the vessel as an image is Alison Britton, Linda Gunn-Russell, Nicholas Homoky and Paul Mathieu[15].

11. Alison Britton, Vase, Yellow Friangle, stoneware, 1981

 Whilst Gazzard and Fritsch approach ceramic vessels differently, they have both been influenced by the modern British ceramic tradition, which includes Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper. Leach was trained in Japan and brought to England an oriental approach to ceramics and introduce new ways of firing and glazing, whereas Rie and Copen both migrants from Europe drew inspiration from modernist art and architecture, influences that can be seen in the form and shape of their work, their glazing and surface treatment reminiscent of Scandinavian table ware.[16],[17]

12. Bernard Leach, vase, stoneware,1931

13. Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, jug and two beakers, stoneware, 1950 -55

Marea Gazzard had a long friendship with Lucy Rie beginning in 1956, both artist where interested in modernist architecture and both shared a belief in “modernism’s search for form and simplicity as a means of expressing mood and meaning”. [18] Whilst Christine France states that the two artist do not share stylistic similarities, I can see a similar approach to both form and surface in some of their work, but not all. 

14. Lucie Rie,vase, stoneware, 1960

15. Lucie Rie, vase, stoneware, 1960

When we look at a collection of pots made by Rie in the 1960s we can see a similar swelling triangular form of Gazzard's Shields and the surface treatment of Rie's three vases made in the 1960s using silicone carbide to create a volcanic surface has a similar quality to Gazzard's Boulder 1969 which used white glazes with iron oxides. 

16. Hans Coper, vase, stoneware, 1958

Hans Coper worked closely with Rie for many years and was also one of Elizabeth Fritsch’s tutor at The Royal College of Art. His limited pallet of light and dark matt glazes are similar to what can be seen on Fritsch’s Moon Pocket pots 1976, 1984 and whilst Coper’s forms are sculptural they all “contain’ in a similar way that Fritsch’s work is very interested in maintaining the vessel as a utilitarian idea.[19],[20]

17. Elizabeth Fritsch, Moon Pockets, 1976, 1984

18. Hans Coper, black form, stoneware,1975

His early works focused on geometrical forms, “interlocking’s of cylinder, sphere and disc”[21] forms such as his 'black form' 1975 and 'vase' 1958 has a similar quality to Gazzard's works in bronze 'Tine' 1993 and earthenware 'Dials' in 1966. By looking at predominantly Fritsch and Gazzard's work I have been influenced by their surface and form whilst hand building a series of three containers.

19. Marea Gazzard, Tine one - eight, bronze, 1993

20. Marea Gazzard, Dials, stoneware, 1966

 As chiefly a painter I was originally drawn to the surface treatment of ceramics but as I have toiled the form has become a preoccupation. To begin with I was drawn to the matt color and surface of Fritsch’s Moon Pocket pots of 1976, as I enjoyed the way in which the darker color of the slip came through the white slip, creating an ancient quality. My teacher Tina Lee then led me to Marea Gazzard's work whose scratched and marked surface treatment appealed to my love of abstract mark making. As I have been hand building these containers out of terra cotta clay I have become more aware of the forms that each artist has created and in a clumsy attempt I have tried to emulate them. I have created three vases that are flat and disc in shape, rough and marked in surface. I plan to decorate the surface in two layers of slipware, which I will rub back to create interesting layers and in this way the form and surface have been influenced by the Gazzard, Fritsch and the British ceramic tradition.

   

Bibliography

Birks, Tony, Lucie Rie (Somerset: Marston House, 1994).
Images: 14, 15

Cripps, David and Dormer, Peter, Elizabeth Fritsch in Studio (London: Bellow Publishing House, 1985).
Images: 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17 

Cigalle, Hanaor, Breaking the Mold; new approaches to ceramics ( London: Black Dog, 2007)

Del Vecchio, Mark, Postmodern Ceramics (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001).

France, Christine, Marea Gazzard: Form and Clay (G+B Arts International Limited, 1994)
Images: 2, 3, 4, 19, 20

Goffen, Rona, Masaccio’s Trinity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Hanley, Luceille, Joan Campbell: Potter ( Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1984).
Images: 6

Watson, Oliver, Studio Pottery (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1993).

Images: 5, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18

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[1] Hanaor, Cigalle. Breaking the Mold; new approaches to ceramics (London: Black dog, 2007), 13

[2] Marea Gazzard, Museum of Applied Arts & Science, mass.museum, Anni Turnbull, 2013, accessed 16 April 2019

[3] David Cripps and Peter Dormer. Elizabeth Fritsch in Studio (London: Bellow Publishing House, 1985), 12

[4] France, C. Marea Gazzard: Form and Clay, (G+B Arts International Limited, 1994), p. 50

[5] Ibid France, C. p.46, 60,

[6] Ibid France, C. p.63

[7] Joan Cambell

[8] Mark Del Vecchio, Postmodern Ceramics (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001) 83

[9] Ibid Del Vecchio, 134.

[10] Cripps, D. 18

[11]  Vecchio, M. 134

[12] Rona Goffen (ed), Masaccio’s Trinity (New York: Cambridge University Press 1998), 7

[13] Cripps, D. p.22

[14]  Cigalle, H. p.13

[15]  Vecchio, M. p.134

[16] Ibid Cripps, D. p27, 30.

[17] Oliver Watson, Studio Pottery (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1993), 29.

[18] Cripps, D. p. 30

[19] Cripps, D. p. 27,

[20] Watson, p. 29

[21] Watson, p.29