Author Biography

Paul Greenhalgh is Director of the Sainsbury Centre and Professor of Art History and Museum Strategy at the University of East Anglia, UK. He was previously Head of Research at the V&A Museum, London, and is the author of books including The Persistence of Craft (2002) and Art Nouveau (2000).

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsPrologue: A History in ShardsCHAPTER 1. WHAT CERAMIC IS1. Fundamentals2. Stuff of the Earth3. The Art of Heat4. The Potter5. Nomenclature and Culture6. The Ceramic Continuum7. Transformers: Classicism, Islam, China, and the Modern8. The Discipline9. Industry and the Levels of Production10. Ubiquity: The Plastic of the Ancient World11. Telling Stories12. Civilisation, Power, and Domestic Life13. Conclusion: Western CeramicCHAPTER 2: THE VALUE OF THE GREEK POTTER1. The World in Black and Red2. Positioning the Pots3. The Earlier Greek World4. Reducing Iron and Oxygen5. Who Were These People?6. Secular Life7. Anachronism, the Value, and the Price of Things8. The Value and the Price of Things9. Conclusion: The Spread of Red and BlackCHAPTER 3: ROME AND THE ARRIVAL OF THE MEDIEVAL WORLD1. The Feel of Roman Pots2. Red Gloss3. The Pots of Empire4. Greece, Rome, and the Classical Idea5. Standardisation6. Dark, Light, an End and a Beginning7. Europe: The Coarse and the Local8. Revivalism and the Vernacular9. Conclusion: The Classical HeritageCHAPTER 4: RENAISSANCES OF TIN1. The Chemistry of Islam2. Islam and Ceramic History3. The Pottery Revolution4. Islam in Europe5. Renaissance Pots6. Colour, Line and Life7. Secular Life8. Pottery and Painting9. Quantity, Quality, and Status10. The Arrival of the Meal11. Sculptural Form12. Italian Potters and Potteries13. Renaissances14. Conclusion: a European EthosCHAPTER 5: THE ENLIGHTENED REIGN OF WHITE1. Chinese Pots2. Technology, Style, Confidence3. Porcelain City4. China in Europe5. The Quest for a European Porcelain6. The Porcelain Explosion7. Blue, White, War, and Peace8. Delftware9. Frivolity and Melancholy: the Figurine Reinvented10. The Rise of Staffordshire11. Conclusion: Modern WhitenessCHAPTER 6: THE NATURAL AND THE INDIVIDUAL: LEAD, SLIP, STONE, SALT1. History, the Collective, and the Individual2. The Renaissance Man3. The Palissystes4. The Salt Renaissance5. Prose and Poetry6. The Nature of Slip7. Configuring Life8. The Arrival of America9. Conclusion: The Ingredients of ModernityCHAPTER 7: THE ACCELERATION OF STYLE AND THE ARRIVAL OF THE MODERN1. Decoration, Complication, and Anxiety2. The Last Transformer: Another Modernity3. Institutionalisation4. Exhibitions5. Ugliness and the Era6. The Invention of Style7. Design Reform and the Ingredients of Modern Design8. The Meaning of Majolica9. The Vortex of Large-scale Production10. The Republic of Tile11. Ceramic Hell12. Gender13. Exoticism14. The Designer15. The Art Nouveau style16. Conclusion: High Eclecticism to Art NouveauCHAPTER 8: THE STUDIO ARRIVES1. A Modern Place2. Art Pottery3. Defining Art4. The Invention of Craft5. The Completeness of Existence6. The Artist-potter7. Émigrés8. Art Deco9. The International Style10. Mid-century Modern11. Potters and Painters12. Conclusion: A World is FormedCHAPTER 9: THE CREATIVE EXPLOSION1. Thunderous Emotion2. Another Modernity3. The World of Funk4. Conceptualism and Minimalism5. A New Arena6. New American Symbolism7. The Ceramic Landscape8. Abstract Vessels9. Postmodernism10. The New Ornamentalism11. Conclusion: The Potter NowPostscript: Attica to CaliforniaNotesBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

Review

Greenhalgh describes the fluctuating status of pots and potters throughout history in connection with the technical development of ceramic as an industry and the emergence of the artist potter… [He] takes us from ancient Greece to the wilder shores of Conceptual Art, Post-Modernism and Californian Funk… Full of surprises [and] provocative * Jane Rye, The Spectator *
Passionately written… At the end of his book, Greenhalgh writes that, 'far more than religion, or war, or academic treatises, skill shaped civilisation'. So true, and there is no better example than ceramics. One closes this compendious history with a breathless feeling: what will potters come up with next? * Glenn Adamson, Apollo *
This is an extraordinary accomplishment. It animates the history of world ceramics in a manner that has not been achieved before. It is full of remarkable insight and beautiful details and will reach a huge and appreciative audience. -- Edmund de Waal, artist and writer, UK
This is an important book. History has not examined the ceramic consistently. It has not always given the medium of clay credence for the part it has played in art. Greenhalgh puts this to rights. He gives the ceramic its rightful context and underlines its importance, telling its story from around 600 BC to the contemporary. And he tackles fundamentals: examining what ceramic is and how it featured in the Classical world, Middle Ages, Renaissance and on through Modernism to now. * The Arts Society Magazine *
Ambitious [and] indeed monumental… Greenhalgh's enthusiasm for his subject is persuasively infectious and the narrative rarely flags over the book's more than 500 pages. The text is enhanced by 409 superb illustrations, intelligently arranged on the page and so captioned to make the reader look, and look again. * Times Literary Supplement *
An epic reshaping of ceramic art… an adventure that I am already impatient to revisit. * Shane Enright, Crafts *
This comprehensive text on ceramics – and the culture surrounding it – discussed its critical role in civilization over millennia, historical era in ceramic art, and the contemporary role of the potter. * Ceramic Arts 2022 Yearbook, a supplement to Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated *
A fresh, eloquent and persuasive polemic that reads like a thriller. * Decorative Arts Society *
If you're after some excellent lockdown reading, Paul Greenhalgh's fascinating book could just fit the bill. * ClayCraft *
A glorious edition ... The photographs of excellent ceramic examples, the clear historical explanations and the pages of other interesting ceramic related information are enchanting. * London Potters *
This is a splendid production, lavishly illustrated with superb images. It is a book to be 'dipped into' for reference, information, or simple fascination ... For art historians and ceramic enthusiasts, this is an outstanding book. * Anglian Potters *
This comprehensive text on ceramics--and the culture surrounding it--discusses its critical role in civilization over millennia, historical eras in ceramic art, and the contemporary role of the potter. * Ceramic Arts 2022 Yearbook, a supplement to the US magazines Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated *
Fascinating. * Emerging Potters *
Greenhalgh's scholarship brings the rapture he feels for ceramics to life in this beautifully written and readable book. It provokes, delights, informs and exposes ceramic's complicity in civilization's birth, moving on to the present with the author's contemporary, witty and ruthlessly critical voice. -- Garth Clark, historian, writer, founder and Editor-in-Chief of the CFile Foundation, USA
Not for a long time has there been such a comprehensive account of the history of ceramics. In this book Paul Greenhalgh captures the importance of the material to our human experience. -- Dame Professor Magdalene Odundo OBE, Emerita in Ceramics and Chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts, UK
Masterful. Paul Greenhalgh has engaged the epic span of ceramic art history with a maker's hands, shaping it into a magnificent, vibrant form, filled to capacity with the voices of individuals, both unknown and known, who devoted their lives to earth and fire … Greenhalgh's text is a remarkable container of sophisticated insight. It offers a longed-for coherent structure upon which to build an understanding of ceramic art as it has unfolded across the near immeasurable scope of human civilization. -- Wayne Higby, Professor of Ceramic Art, The Wayne Higby Director and Chief Curator, Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, Alfred University, USA
Greenhalgh fills a major gap in the ceramics field where technique most often sets the content. His writing elevates the conversation and takes ceramics beyond its formal history to where it is effectively placed in a cultural context. His curatorial eye adds a perspective on the work not often found in such a survey. Thoroughly researched, expansive in both its timeline and depth, this book is a welcome resource for researchers and serious students of clay, as well as those with a general interest in ceramics. -- Anna Callouri Holcombe, Professor of Ceramics, University of Florida, USA
Paul Greenhalgh takes the reader on a multi-faceted voyage exploring the long, complex history of a commonplace material and its intimate connection to human life. From humble to high society, hand or machine, meaning and function, this book is a revelatory celebration of the creativity, invention and skill of individuals and societies producing and using ceramic. -- Helen Walsh, Curator, Centre of Ceramic Art, York Art Gallery, UK
Since the earliest of times, across myriad civilisations that have come and gone, ceramics endure. Each sherd tells us of the discipline's discreet history, but also so much more. Ceramics form the fabric of societies and their anthropological connections to individuals and societies paint detailed and intimate pictures. Paul Greenhalgh takes the reader across the centuries citing links and dialogues between the modern and the ancient. To be able to step back and take in the panoply of this vast subject and select appropriate and relevant examples is an affirming indicator of a deep, specialist and eloquent knowledge. There are very few people qualified to take on a task such as this. Greenhalgh is one of a few and probably the best equipped to do so. -- Ashley Howard, Senior Lecturer in Ceramics, University for the Creative Arts, UK

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A groundbreaking history of ceramics from 3000 BC to the present day, tracing the relationship between ceramics and civilisation, the culture of ceramics through history, and the social importance of ceramics.

Review Quote

This is an extraordinary accomplishment. It animates the history of world ceramics in a manner that has not been achieved before. It is full of remarkable insight and beautiful details and will reach a huge and appreciative audience.

Promotional "Headline"

A groundbreaking history of ceramics from 3000 BC to the present day, tracing the relationship between ceramics and civilisation, the culture of ceramics through history, and the social importance of ceramics.

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Major new book by high profile art historian Paul Greenhalgh

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