Colin Pearson (1923-2007) trained at Goldsmiths’ College and Winchcombe Pottery. A very skilled thrower, Pearson's first pottery was at Aylesford, Kent, where he made a range of essentially Leach-inspired individual pots and domestic ware. However by the beginning of the 1970s, wanting a change of direction, he began to develop freely thrown and turned pieces which explored new types of cylindrical form and surface. To these he was soon adding attachments or ‘wings’, his cutting and altering helping to create an original dynamic in throwing and post-wheel elaboration.

Working in both stoneware and porcelain, Pearson’s pots took on a more sculptural quality, and while deriving some of their inspiration from early Chinese pottery and bronzes for example, they had a bold modernity and texture of their own. He made a variety of forms over the next thirty years, showing his delight in stretching the materials and investigating different glazes and slips to accentuate the varied character of the clay. Pearson latterly lived and worked in Islington, north London.

David Whiting