Elizabeth Fritsch CBE (born 1940) is a British studio potter and ceramic artist born into a Welsh family in Whitchurch on the Shropshire border.Emmanuel Cooper, Ten Thousand Years of Pottery (British Museum Press, 2000) Her innovative hand built and painted pots are often influenced by ideas from music, painting, literature, landscape and architecture.
Biography
Elizabeth Fritsch is a studio potter and ceramic artist. She uses fine technically proficient hand built coiling techniques; architectural ceramic form, optical effects and surface design which, are usually hand painted with coloured slips.Ceramics Masterclass by Louisa Taylor, published Thames and Hudson Ltd; 01 Edition (6 Aug. 2020), The stoneware are biscuit fired and often re-fired a number of times. Each Fritsch pot is unique, individual and distinctive. They are usually displayed in selected groups and themes set to the artist's requirements.
Fritsch initially studied at the Birmingham School of Music studying harp, and then piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1958 to 1964; but she later took up ceramics under Hans Coper and Eduardo Paolozzi at the Royal College of Art from 1968 to 1971. Adopting her career name from her marriage to Jean Mathis-Fritsch (m.1966-71) she had a son Bertie born in 1966. In the seventies Fritsch, was one of the first of a group of progressive 'New Ceramics' to emerge from the Royal College of Art, along with other ceramicists including Alison Britton, Carol McNicoll and Jacqueline Poncelet. Under David Queensbury, the group formed a shift and influence in British ceramic art, breaking away from the more traditional forms, colour, design and function of the more utilitarian ceramics that had preceded. Fritsch lived and worked at Digswell Arts Trust from 1975 to 1983. Her daughter Ruby Hughes was born in 1980 and in the same year was awarded the John Ruskin Bursary for a fictional archaeology project. This project went into developing an important new body of work and shift in the artist career.'Pots from Nowhere'(fictional archaeology) was shown at the Royal College of Art by Queensberry Hunt in 1984.
In 1985, Fritsch set up a studio in London. Since her first show in 1972, Fritsch has had a number of solo shows. In 1996 and 2001 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Ceramics. Fritsch's work is represented in major art collections and museums in more than nine countries and her work is represented in major British art museum collections. A major retrospective was held at the National Museum Cardiff, in 2010, featuring a complete range of her most significant studio pottery and recent pieces. Since the late 1970s Fritsch has considered "the space between the second and third dimensions", in her work; a concept she first described as "two-and-a-half dimensions" with her distinctive rhythmic patterns and optical effects.Between Dimensions: The representation of the object , MIMA, 25 November 2011 – 24 February 2012 Dynamic Structures: Painted Vessels also marked her 70th birthday.Dynamic Structures: Painted Vessels by Elizabeth Fritsch, published by the National Museum of Wales, October 2010, A co-curated solo exhibition of selected studio works was presented at Frieze Masters - Frieze Art Fair in October 2023 at Regents Park, London by Adrian Sassoon Gallery, October 11-15th 2023 within Luke Syson's Stand Out section exploring the juxtapositions and use of colour.
Fritsch is to have a major survey exhibition of her work and career at The Hepworth Wakefield in March 2025 entitled Otherworldly VesselsOtherworldly Vessels
Awards 2001: Shortlisted for Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts 2001: Ceramics 1996: Shortlisted for Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts 1996: Ceramics 1995: Awarded CBE:Commander of the British EmpireThe Gazette: Official Public Record: 1995 1995: Elected Senior Fellowship, Royal College of Art 1993: Gold Medali, Visuelle Spiele, International Handwerksmesse München, Germany 1987: Bernard Leach Centenary Post Office Stamp issue with Hans Coper & Lucie RiePost Office Stamps:1987 1980: John Ruskin Bursary for Fictional Archaeology project 1976: Gold Medal, International Ceramics Competition, Sopot, Poland 1972: Prize Winner, Royal Copenhagen Jubilee 1970: Silver Medal Royal College of Art: Herbert Read Memorial Prize
Museum and public collections Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Wales Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum, Aberdeen Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol British Council, Great Britain Crafts Council, London Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, Tyne & Wear Lotherton Hall, Leeds, Yorkshire Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough National Museums Liverpool, Merseyside National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh National Museum of Wales,Cardiff Elizabeth Fritsch collection at the National Museum Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonV&A Collections Saxophone and Piano Duo, Pair of vases 1978 (made)Stoneware, with matt C.160-1979 Gallery location: Studio Ceramics, room 142, case 1, shelf 2 York Art Gallery, York Kunstindustrimuseet, Copenhagen, Denmark Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Germany Museum of Design, Zürich Museum Bellerive, Zurich, Switzerland Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkA Box Bottle ca. 1974 Stoneware Dimensions: H. 15, W. 9 inches (38.1 x 22.9 cm.) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Solo exhibitions 2025: Elisabeth Fritsch: Otherworldy Vessels, The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, 8 March 2025.https://hepworthwakefield.org/whats-on/elizabeth-fritsch/ 2023: Frieze Masters Art Fair 2023, The Regents Park, London. Adrian Sassoon Gallery, October 11-15th 2023Introducing Frieze Masters 2023 | Frieze 2010 Retrospective: National Museum Cardiff, Wales, UK. Dynamic Structures: Painted Vessels, October 2010– JanuaryDynamic Structures: Painted Vessels by Elizabeth Fritsch. "What's On", National Museum Cardiff, UK, 27 Nov 2010. Retrieved on 2010-11-22. 2008: Fine Art Society - London November -December.Elizabeth Fritsch: The Fine Art Society, London, in association with Joanna Bird Pottery. Published by The Fine Art Society, in association with Joanna Bird Pottery, for the exhibition Elizabeth Fritsch, 12 – 27 Nov 2008, 2007: Retrospective, Bonhams, London 2007: Anthony Hepworth Gallery, Bath 2000: Metaphysical Vessels, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2000: Memory of Architecture, Part II, Besson Gallery, London 1998: Sea Pieces, Contemporary Applied Arts, London 1995–96: Retrospective touring to Munich, Karlsruhe, Halle and Bellerive, Zurich 1995: Metaphysical Pots, Bellerive Museum 1994–95: Order and Chaos, Bellas Artes, Santa Fe, New Mexico 1994: Osiris Gallery, Brussels 1993–1995: Vessels from Another World, Northern Centre for the Contemporary Arts, Sunderland, travelling to Aberdeen, Birmingham, Cardiff, London, Norwich, UK 1992–93: Retrospective, Pilscheur Fine Art, London 1991: Hetjens Museum, Düsseldorf, Germany 1990: Cross Rhythms and Counterpoint, Edinburgh, Scotland 1978: Pots about Music, Leeds Galleries, Temple Newsham; travelled to Glasgow, Bristol, Gateshead, Bolton, and V&A, London 1976: British Craft Centre, London 1974: Waterloo Place Gallery, London 1972: Bing and Grondahl, Copenhagen
Bibliography Edward Lucie-Smith on Elizabeth Fritsch: Vessels from another World, Metaphysical pots Painted Stoneware, Bellew Publishing, 1993. Peter Dormer and David Cripps “Elizabeth Fritsch in Studio – A view”, In Studio Series, Bellew, London, 1985. Elizabeth Fritsch, Pots about Music. Authors: Elizabeth Fritsch, David Cripps, Leeds City Art Gallery (England), David Queensberry, Alison Britton, Ian Bennett. Publisher, Leeds Art Galleries, 1978, ASIN B0007AT9X2 E. Cameron & P. Lewis, Potters on Pottery, Elizabeth Fritsch, pgs. 62-69 Evans Brothers, London 1976.
Articles The Wall Street Journal "A New Spin on Ceramics" by Margaret Studer, 18 May 2006 Moira Vincentelli Women & Ceramics, Gendered Vessels, Manchester University Press, 2000, p. 249. , Garth Clark The Potter's Art, Phaidon 1995, pp. 200–201. , John Houston The Abstract Pot forms of expression and decoration by nine artist potters, Bellew Publishing, 1991. Fischer Fine Art (1986) Nine Potters: Bernard Leach, Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, Michael Cardew, Hans Coper, Lucie Rie, Elizabeth Fritsch, Ewen Henderson, Elizabeth Raeburn, Claudi Casanovas, Catalogue of an exhibition held at Fisher Fine Art, 1986. ASIN B001ON0RX2 John Russell Taylor, "Elizabeth Fritsch: Pots About Music" Ceramic Review, 58 Jul/Aug 1979 pgs 30–33. J.D.H. Catleugh "Recent Pots: Improvisations from Earth to Air", Ceramic Review, 44 Mar/Apr 1977 pg 7.
Broadcasts and podcasts British Library, Sounds Oral History, On 6 July 2004, (1 of 14) National Life Stories Collection: Crafts' Lives
BBC Private Passions, Classic Arts Production, On 14 April 2001 Michael Berkeley's guest was Elizabeth Fritsch
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Ceramic Points of View: 'Optical Pot', by Elizabeth Fritsch Video Podcasts'Ceramics Points of View' collaboration between The National Electronic and Video Archive of the Crafts and the V&A. Elizabeth Fritsch, 'Optical Pot', stoneware, height 311mm, width 232mm, 1980. Museum no. C.13-1981
References