Sara Radstone

Sara Radstone (born 1955 in London) is a British ceramic artist and lecturer. Her work has been widely shown throughout the world for more than four decades and ranges from intimate wall based sculpture to large scale installations of multiple elements. Radstone trained at Camberwell College of Arts, graduating in 1979 as part of a celebrated cohort that included Angus Suttie and Henry Pim. Her work is included in numerous public collections both in the UK and overseas, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; British Council; Crafts Council, London; Contemporary Art Society, London; Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, University of East Anglia; Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Arizona State University Art Museum; Arkansas Arts Center; Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt; Buckinghamshire County Museum; Birmingham City Art Gallery; Paisley Museum and Art Gallery; Ulster Museum, Belfast; Swindon Museum and Art Gallery; Town of Chateauroux; Unilever plc, London; Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery; MIMA, Middlesbrough; The Anthony Shaw Collection, Centre of Ceramic Art, York.

'Shroud III' 2017. Detail of wall based sculpture, slip-dipped hessian scrim, paint-stained newsprint.

She lives and works in South East London.

Career

Teaching

Radstone has always combined her professional practice with teaching and lecturing, both in the UK and abroad. She has taught at Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts, London; University for the Creative Arts, Farnham; Wimbledon School of Art, London; Portsmouth Polytechnic; and since 1994 on the highly acclaimed Ceramics Diploma Course at the City Lit in London. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer at University of Sunderland; University of Westminster; Croydon School of Art; Exeter College of Art and Design; Loughborough College of Art and Design; University for the Creative Arts, Rochester; Central St.Martin's School of Art, London; Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent; Edinburgh College of Art and, as Artist in Residence, Thomas Tallis School, London. During 1990 Radstone was Visiting Professor in the School of Fine Arts, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer at universities in Seoul, South Korea; Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Habourfront Arts Centre, Toronto; Sheridan College, Mississauga, Ontario; New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, USA; National College of Art and Design, Dublin; Limerick College of Art; Crawford College of Art, Cork; Towson State University, Baltimore, Maryland and Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Work

Described by collector Anthony Shaw as a "unique and authentic voice"[1], Sara Radstone's work has always pushed against the perceived boundaries of ceramic sculpture. She comes from "...a generation of artists using clay to open up forms of expression rather than the enclosed and centred object"[1]. Her distinctive handbuilt structures explore ideas concerned with memory, history and human traces, loss and absence, and attempt to forge a material language to express these themes. Recent work also incorporates paper, paint, cloth and found ephemera, embracing ideas concerning frailty, fragmentation and suppression.

'Untold' 2017. An installation of 27 elements; paper clay and mixed media.

In 1979 Sara Radstone established her first studio at 401½ Workshops in South London, receiving a grant from the Crafts Council, followed by an award from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Trust. Other awards followed, which included Greater London Arts, the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust, the Unilever Prize and, in 1993, the inaugural Arts Foundtion Fellowship. Radstone was a contributor to the conference, Culture and the Unconscious at SOAS, London, and she was a participant at the St. George's House, Windsor Castle, consultation, The Value of Culture and the Crisis of Judgement. In 2020 she delivered the annual Henry Hammond Memorial Lecture.

Exhibititions

Sara Radstone has exhibited nationally and internationally for 40 years. As well as regular solo exhibitions at Marsden Woo Gallery in London, she has had one person exhibitions at Anatol Orient and Galerie Besson, London, and at Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham; Edinburgh College of Art; Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery; An Lanntair, Stornoway and Osiris Gallery, Brussels. Numerous group shows at UK and international venues include Keramikmuseet Grimmerhus, Denmark; Galerie Binnen, Amsterdam; Pro Art, St Louis, Missouri; Galerie Marianne Heller, Sandhausen; Galerie L and Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Bellas Artes, Santa Fe and New York City; Art Space Niji, Tokyo; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia; Crafts Council Gallery, London; Barbican Arts Centre, London; MOMA Oxford; Contemporary Applied Arts, London. 2017-18 saw the celebration of her career to date with a major retrospective exhibition, 'More than Words' at York Art Gallery's Centre of Ceramic Art. In 2019 she was a joint organiser of Unearthed, a three person exhibition at the House Mill, Three Mills Island, London.+

Publications

• Sara Radstone: More than Words, The Anthony Shaw Collection 2018; a special edition of this book (print run of 50) includes a unique and specially commissioned work on paper by Radstone;
• Richard Stubbs,Conversation Pieces 2014;
• Phil Sayer, Studio, Ruthin Craft Centre, 2012;
• David Whiting, Modern British Potters and their studios, A&C Black 2010;
• Michael Hardy, Coiling, A&C Black 2006;
• Jane Perryman, Naked Clay, A&C Black 2005;
• Cyril Frankel, Modern Pots, Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and their Contemporaries, the Lisa Sainsbury Collection, UEA 2001;
• Jo Lauria, Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Studio Ceramics 1950-2000, LACMA / Rizzoli 2000;
• Edmund de Waal, Design Sourcebook: Pottery and Ceramics, New Holland 1999;
• Richard Zakin, Ceramics - Mastering the Craft, Krause Publishing 2000;
• Betty Blandino, Coiled Pottery, (reprint, update), A&C Black 1996;
• Garth Clark, The Potter's Art, Abbeville Press 1992;
• Oliver Watson, British Studio Pottery, V&A/Phaidon/Christies 1990;
• Paul Rice and Christopher Gowing, British Studio Ceramics, Barrie and Jenkins 1989;
• Betty Blandino, Coiled Pottery, A&C Black 1984.

Writing

Catalogue essay for 79/97, An Lanntair and tour; 'An Exemplary Artist', catalogue essay for Angus Suttie 1946-1993, published by Contemporary Applied Arts 1994; Obituary: Angus Suttie, Crafts, September/October 1993; 'Builders of Dreams', Crafts, March/April 1987; Review, Crafts, May/June 1986; 'The Whole Works', essay for Angus Suttie exhibition catalogue, Anatol Orient 1985.

Bibliography

• museumcrush.org Jan 2018;
• yorkpress.co.uk Jan 2018;
• Leaves of Clay, Ceramic Review, Jan/Feb 2015;
• Review, Ceramic Review, March/April 2005;
• Review, Ceramics in Society, Summer 2002;
• Review, Crafts, May/June 2002 (page 51);
• Review, Ceramic Review, May/June 2002 (page 59);
• Review, Crafts, May/June 1999 (page 61);
• Profile and review, Studio Pottery, August/September 1997;
• Pandora's Box (catalogue), Crafts Council 1995;
• The Raw and the Cooked (catalogue), Museum of Modern Art, Oxford 1993;
• 'Acquisitive Artists', Arts Review, December/January 1993;
• Review, Arts Review, February 1990;
• Review by Tanya Harrod, Crafts, May/June 1990 (page 53);
• Article, Monthly Crafts (Korea), October 1990;
• Review by Jane Hamlyn, Crafts, March/April 1989;
• Review by Graham Hughes, Arts Review, February 1988;
• Review by Alison Britton, Crafts, May/June 1988 (page 49);
• 'Radstone Wins at Portobello', Crafts, July/August 1988 (page 8);
• Review by Emmanuel Cooper, Crafts, January/February 1987;
• Profile by Angus Suttie, Ceramic Review, July/August 1986 (page 22);
• Review by Alison Britton, Crafts, September/October 1986;
• 'British Ceramics in Czechoslovakia', Milena Lamarova, American Craft, February/March 1985;
• Review, Ceramics Monthly (USA), January 1984;
• Profile by Richard Deacon, Crafts, May/June 1983 (page 26);
• Review by Griselda Gilroy, Crafts, July/August 1981.