David Burnham Smith: Ceramic Artist - Softcover

Haslam, Malcolm

9780903685634: David Burnham Smith: Ceramic Artist

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0903685639 ISBN 13: 9780903685634

Publisher: Richard Dennis, 1998

1998 Exhibition Catalogue with an illustrated essay by Malcolm Haslam on the work of David Burnham Smith. When considering David Burnham Smith's work, it is advisable to abandon several worn-out concepts. Forget, for instance, the English porcelain tradition. Forget other pigeon-holes which leap to mind; forget Surrealism, Op Art, Post-Modernism. Admittedly, they are all relevant to his art, but none of them is essential to it. Sympathy, empathy, delight, humour and mystery are of much greater significance. Anyone looking at these ceramics will probably experience some intellectual satisfaction and, no doubt, a degree of aesthetic appreciation. But they may also have feelings they are less certain how to define. Then the artist will be content, for he will have successfully performed his task and achieved his goal. The critic, however, would not be performing his task, if he simply recorded emotional responses, however deep or complex they were. People want to know - quite reasonably - Where this artist-magician Comes from, and how he works his magic. To answer the former query, it is quite simple to give the kind of biographical facts usually found in a CV, but, in doing so, the latter question must always be borne in mind. Therefore, while it is hardly necessary to give a detailed account of David's infancy and childhood, it has to be mentioned that he vividly remembers, when he was still small boy, visiting his grandmother at her home in Croydon and being enthralled by some strange little faces intricately carved in nuts which were displayed in her living-room. Here, too, he experienced at a tender age his earliest response to pottery; his grandmother owned some cobalt-blue china with platinum-lustre handles - modest, domestic ware in itself but to David it posed problems, hinted at mysteries. ......... Malcom Haslam

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