Carol McNicoll (1943 - 2025) was one of the most dynamic of British slip-casters, making original vividly decorated forms that created a whole new ceramic repertoire for shelf and dining table. Like its maker, her work was entirely lacking in self importance or preciosity, showing a delight in the accumulated bric-a-brac of the home, of the sophistication of European pottery as well as the more ordinary objects that have filled our domestic lives. But her flamboyant, lively and humorous pieces, often figurative, the surfaces heavily illustrated, could allude to serious ideas, themes and issues.
McNicoll had a broad visual training in Solihull, at Leeds Polytechnic and the RCA, giving her a very rounded knowledge of design, fashion and textiles, as well as clay. This made her essentially celebratory vision all encompassing, and any McNicoll retrospective would need to take account of her richly multi-disciplinary nature. She lived and worked in London.
David Whiting |
