Lunchtime Lecture: Making Emmanuel Cooper

Potter, writer, teacher, editor, curator and LGBT rights advocate, Emmanuel Cooper was a significant figure in the cultural landscape of this country for almost half a century. In this lecture, David Horbury, his long-time partner who recently edited Cooper’s memoirs, will discuss the journey of this intelligent, if unconfident, working class boy growing up in a small north Derbyshire mining village whose life was transformed, firstly at school, by the magic of clay, and then in adult life by the liberation politics of the late 1960s. With particular reference to issues of class and sexuality, Horbury will reveal how these shaped and influenced Cooper’s creativity and helped to produce a body of work that has endured, and which continues to delight and inspire.

Visit our SoundCloud channel to listen to past Lunchtime Lectures: soundcloud.com/vamuseum/sets/v-a-lunchtime-lecture-series