Alison Britton on William Staite-Murray

AB: Well, this is a piece that's saying it's a work of art, isn't it? Perhaps I know that, rather than seeing it. I know that's how he thought of his work, and I know that's how he charged for his work. I think in Oliver's book it says that this was sixty guineas when they bought it, which would be a lot in those days, wouldn't it? I don't feel very strongly for it, but I like that he opened up that avenue of saying, very definitely, that a pot could be a work of art. That is a very important stand to make, I think.

It's obviously a stoneware piece and already Leach was concentrating more on stoneware, as if it gives higher status to be [a] harder, high-fired object.  [video clip starts] It's a rather tentative drawing - if the camera can see it - with these nice glaze spots. That's what gives it its zest, I think, the colour, the sudden colour, because otherwise you would hardly know there was a figure on it, and you start to read it because you're attracted to those splodges of colour which have melted into the base glaze. Of his work it's not as strong as many pieces that I do relate to, which are perhaps the more vigorously striped or making a bigger impact somehow. But thinking of it in its time, it's striking, I think. [video clip ends] He and Leach, of course, were fighting for the same job of running the Ceramics Department of the Royal College and Staite-Murray won, otherwise I think the course of history would have been very ...

MP: Do you think the decoration of the figure and where it's placed in relation to the profile of the pot works?

AB: It's a little bit underdone, I think. I think he could have gone a bit further. It's tentative, as I was saying. Yes, if that was me relating to this object I wouldn't just do ... well, if I did it on just one side I would make it a bit more 'oomphy'. If I was doing it like that I think I would do something else on the back. Not to make it symmetrical and balance it, but just something that would draw you round outside the object, because it is a three-dimensional object, it's not a mantlepiece thing. So yes, perhaps it's a bit disappointing in that way.

MP: Because presumably the fact that the head is at the narrow part at the top and people talk about pots in relation to the foot and the body and ...

AB: Yes, it's fitting. it's fitting. I mean this little curve does suggest the head part. It would be interesting to know whether he meant to draw the figure on it when he made the pot or whether it was an afterthought or whether it was a kind of response. I would love to see more things made at the same time to see whether that was what he was doing again and again, or if it was a sudden whim. But it does talk very clearly about foot, shoulder, lip, doesn't it?