Matthew Yeats
5 July 2024
The market for Contemporary Craft is experiencing a renaissance at present, with works achieving record prices and becoming highly coveted.
In an increasingly digital and commercial world, the fine-tuned skills and intricate techniques apparent in these works appeal to audiences internationally who seek the tangibility and materiality borne from makers hands. We are delighted to share five craftspeople whose work we are particularly excited about in 2024.
"I'm quite lucky... not everyone has spent so many years making things"
- Richard Kell
Since January 1983, when he began working as a craftsman, Richard Kell has honed his skill and developed a signature style that established him as one of the finest and most talented makers in Britain. He is celebrated not only for the creation of unique honing guides for woodworkers, but also for his wide range of objects that span from large and commanding sun dials to delicate and intricately carved boxes that require carefully considered and well-engineered construction. Meticulous design and high workshop standards are at the core of all his work.
Born in Berkshire in 1940, Mary Farmer would go on to become one of the most important weavers of tapestries and rugs in Britain during the twentieth century.
Farmer studied Fine Art at Beckenham School of Art from 1958-1961 followed by a prestigious Digswell Arts Fellowship from 1964. Farmer was quick to receive important commissions for her work, with the Ambassador’s residence at the British Embassy in Paris commissioning a rug in 1966. The Victoria & Albert Museum’s Circulation Department then acquired a rug and included works in the important touring show of British design organised with the Smithsonian in the USA from 1969-1971.
From this point, in addition to producing her own intricate works, Farmer took on numerous educational posts – most notably culminating as the Course Director of MA Tapestry at the Royal College of Art, where her legacy as a craftswoman disseminated amongst her students. Farmer’s bold and geometric patterns have become synonymous with her work and contributes to their appeal. She mastered the application of colour and used the language of abstraction in weaving with great creativity, which has led to her work being highly coveted and present in numerous important collections from the Government Art Collection to the Crafts Council.
“Complete symmetry is a static state; it doesn’t have any movement. But if it’s asymmetrical, people have something to do with it. If they see something imperfect, or something a bit broken, people try to complete it in their imagination to make it more balanced. I discovered that imperfection has to work in a balance of wholeness of the object.”
- Akiko Hirai
Born in Japan in 1970, Akiko Hirai is considered as one of the most celebrated contemporary ceramicists producing work today.
Hirai was not always a ceramicist – she originally studied cognitive psychology before turning her attention to ceramics following her discovery of the Korean moon jars in the British Museum. She relocated to London in 1999 and enrolled at University of Westminster in 2000 before continuing to Central St. Martins in 2002 to where she studied ceramics. Hirai’s work is highly sought after and regularly features in important exhibitions of contemporary ceramics with exhibitions at the New Craftman Gallery in St Ives, Contemporary Applied Arts in London, and The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh to name a few.
Hirai describes her work as a response to human senses, with each piece being made up of unique deep textures, cool colours, and simple forms to allow the viewer to understand her works in their own terms. The way in which Hirai explores her materials contributes to her fascinating and broad range of works aesthetically. From her instantly recognisable large, volcanic moon jars with their impactful protruding elements and naturalistic forms, to her elegant and Morandi bottles with their simplicity of form and colour that allows for quiet contemplation.
"There wasn't going to be any wood for building for a long time, so I thought I'd stick to wood, and ditch buildings."
- David Pye in Crafts magazine, 1976.
Following his time in the Navy, celebrated designer David Pye shifted his attention from designing wooden buildings to wooden furniture, as the above quote testifies. The result of this shift would see Pye become a prominent furniture designer and educator, who professionally would find himself as the Professor of Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art from 1964 until 1974. For Pye, when creating a piece of furniture, his priority had to be placed on the diversity of the object through the manipulation and abstraction of the chosen piece of wood. It was essential that the viewer had a focal point between the overall form of the object and the inherent texture of the material itself.
Remembered today as a leading woodworker and carver, his legacy is most likely found in his fluted works made on his ‘fluting engine’ that was created in order to assist him to in the creation of his pieces. His objects are praised for their acknowledgment of their inherently naturalistic surface and for the elegant manipulation of his materials. Working across a wide range of different woods, Pye seamlessly diversified aesthetically while maintaining a sense of cohesion across throughout his oeuvre.
Born in Marylebone in London in 1922 to academic parents, Peter Collingwood was quick to find his calling as a weaver and has now become one of the most celebrated weavers of the last century.
His passion for the work and skill began to develop during his national service when he would produce scarves for the officers’ wives on a home-made loom that he created from two deckchairs. From the mid-1960s, Collingwood began to create the works he has become most celebrated for: his exquisite macrogauze wall hangings. These intricate, delicate, and highly mathematical constructions involve wrapping linen thread amongst steel rods to create entrancing pieces in a language of abstraction that honours the materiality of his chosen elements.
Collingwood’s work reflects the duality of his position as a craftsperson in the way in which he combines traditional skill and visual abstraction to produce visions of perfectly balanced harmony. His work, from wall hangings to rugs, achieves a poetic elegance and openness that celebrates the textiles in their ethereal abstraction and encourages viewers to examine and question their significance within the context of their surroundings. As a result, Collingwood’s work can be found in numerous important private and public collections such as the Tate and the Craft Study Centre.
