Emmanuel Cooper (1938-2012) worked as a writer, editor, teacher and critic as well as a potter. Derbyshire-born, he was an educated at Bournmouth School of Art before getting workshop practice in London and setting up a studio in Primrose Hill. His work revealed always his love of process and interest in glaze technology, and stylistically his later pieces were clearly influenced by Lucie Rie, though philosophically Cooper was pragmatic, interested in a broad spectrum of activity in clay. This made him a most able historian as well.

His pots were essentially functional or based on the idea of functional form, interested as he was in its sculptural possibilities. He made modern pots for a modern environment.

David Whiting