Arts and Design

Robin Welch obituary


Robin Welch, who has died aged 83, was one of a small group of significant potters who expanded the language of throwing (or shaping) pots on the wheel, in his case through post-wheel additions and alteration. This gave his generally cylindrical forms a more organic and sculptural aspect, but their heavily coloured and textured surfaces were as much about painting, too, as Robin sought an integration of the visual disciplines he enjoyed. As he once wrote: “There’s no divide between art or craft. You decide to be an artist and you’ll use anything. If marooned on a desert island you’d use driftwood.”

Pot by Robin Welch


His later exhibitions, in particular, demonstrated this philosophy. They were effectively installations of pots, paintings, wall panels and prints that expressed, above all, his love of the landscape, most particularly that of Australia, where he spent a significant amount of time when not in his Suffolk studio. Robin’s sensibility was drawn to hotter climates, to the outback’s arid earth and brilliant light, its grittier textures and luminous colour, qualities he sought to convey in-the-round and on canvas.

He was a consummate thrower, but his mature pots had an expressive freedom and spontaneity that moved them beyond traditional function, where his creative roots certainly lay. His work often had a totemic, even mystical presence, reminding us that modern pots can still reach back to their earliest forms in history. He was skilled as a designer for industry too, and received commissions for Wedgwood, Midwinter and Denby.

Robin’s artistic range came from a remarkably varied training. He was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the son of Kay (nee Snow) and Jim Welch, who were hoteliers. Initially drawn to painting, he studied art at college in Nuneaton, followed in 1953 by Penzance School of Art in Cornwall. There he discovered pottery under the spell of its teacher Michael Leach, son of Bernard.

Michael encouraged Robin to spend weekends and holidays at the Leach Pottery in St Ives, so he could gain technical experience as a maker at the wheel. He worked there intermittently through the 1950s, during which time he did his stint of national service, serving in the Parachute Regiment, before going to study at the Central School, London, in 1956. There his artistic horizons were further broadened by a forward-thinking and adventurous ceramics department, headed by Gilbert Harding-Green, who quickly appointed Robin as a technical assistant.

Pot and painting by Robin Welch

At the Central he came into contact with some remarkable creative figures, not only formative potters including Ruth Duckworth, Ian Auld, William Newland and Gordon Baldwin, but artists including Alan Davie, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull. Baldwin in particular offered an approach to ceramics that was liberatingly experimental and open, referring to wider developments in modern art, and finding a willing convert in Robin, who was excited by the London exhibitions he saw at the time, notably a show by the American abstract expressionist Mark Rothko. It was also at the Central that he met fellow ceramics student Jenny Knowland, and they went on to marry in 1963.

He established his first workshop in 1960, in the West End of London, but within two years he moved to Australia, soon joined by Jenny, to help Ian Sprague set up his pottery at Beaconsfield Upper, in Victoria. There Robin made large quantities of functional pots, before returning home and moving to Stradbroke, near Eye in Suffolk, in 1965. He remained there for the rest of his life, living in an old farmhouse with extensive working space in an adjacent barn.

Pot by Robin Welch


His simple, precisely turned and well designed bowls, dishes and cylinder shapes were marked by bands of glaze, with assistants helping to make domestic ware. This sold so well that he had to employ template mould techniques to speed up making, but it took a physical toll on Jenny, and exchange rate and transport issues led to it being scaled down, with Robin beginning to concentrate more on his individual pieces.

Meanwhile, another visit to Australia in 1980 had initiated his looser, more asymmetric approach to form. By the middle of that decade Robin was developing a range of vessels, some of monumental size, the surfaces of which were modulated by a freer geometry of squares, bands and stripes of varied colour and finish, sometimes treated with sand to add texture. He often combined wheel-thrown bases with coiled or slab-built upper sections, the pots sometimes being fired several times.

In 1985 he made a series of giant candlesticks for the east end of Lincoln Cathedral, “technically at the limit which can be achieved by a potter’s wheel”, and comparable in scale to Hans Coper’s ceramic candle holders for Coventry Cathedral. He refused to be cowed by the onset of Parkinson’s disease in later years and was working until very recently.

Robin’s embracing of numerous media defied easy categorisation, a fact he relished, but it led to a unified and enriching vision of land, light and colour.

He is survived by Jenny, and their children, Samantha, Polly and Marcus, and by his son, Brian Viner, from a previous relationship.

Robin Welch, potter and painter, born 23 July 1936; died 5 December 2019



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