Peter Wright (1919-2003) showed no interest in self promotion, but still had a loyal following, particularly in the South-West, where he lived most of his adult life. He studied graphics at Hornsey, rediscovering clay when he began teaching art. His evolving style was a microcosm of some of the most interesting developments in post-war British ceramics, beginning in the 1950s with original slipware that related to the expressive pots of William Newland, Nicholas Vergette and their circle.

Living near Bath, Wright continued his functional interests with stoneware, but his pots became increasingly metaphorical in nature, and from the mid 1960s his concerns were chiefly sculptural. By the following decade, now established in a studio in Bath, he was focussing on totemic, biomorphic and subsequently bisected and interlocking forms, these at first abstract, but latterly figurative and made in slip-cast editions. Wright's work was deeply personal, and always highly individual. He had little involvement in the ceramics scene, but enjoyed a material that gave him such free expressive rein.

David Whiting