Pottery Dish: Fish on Blue Ground

Location

Country: Singapore
City: Singapore
Place: British High Commission

A polychromatic fish emerges from the enamelled depths of these two pottery dishes by Quentin Bell. From the mid-1930s to the end of his life, Bell produced an eclectic range of ceramics including pots, cups, dishes, wall tiles and jewellery. Speaking to art historian Isabelle Anscombe in 1979, Bell revealed:

I tend to make things that I’m going to have fun decorating. That’s one of the reasons why I make plates such a lot.

Quentin Bell, the son of the Bloomsbury Group artist Vanessa Bell and art critic Clive Bell, was a painter, sculptor, ceramicist and author. He trained in pottery in the 1930s and set up a kiln at his family home of Charleston, East Sussex. He produced pottery into the 1980s that offered a crossover between the Omega workshops and folk art.

Places

Subjects

decorative art & craft, unidentifiable fish

Materials & Techniques

pottery, glazed

Artist

Quentin Bell (1910 - 1996)

Title

Pottery Dish: Fish on Blue Ground

Date

Medium

Glazed pottery

Dimensions

height: 30.00 cm, width: 35.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Sally Hunter Fine Art, July 1987

Inscription

incised on verso: Sullivan / pottery XV fecit / Quentil Bell / ...it

GAC number

16615