A studio potter is one who is a modern artist, who either works alone or in a small group, producing unique items of pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 (ceramics) in small quantities, typically with all stages of manufacture carried out by themselves. Studio pottery includes functional wares such as tableware

Tableware

Tableware is the dishes or dishware , dinnerware , or china used for setting a table, serving food, and for dining. Tableware can be meant to include flatware and glassware...

 or cookware

Cookware and bakeware

Cookware and bakeware are types of food preparation containers commonly found in the kitchen. Cookware comprises cooking vessels, such as saucepans and frying pans, intended for use on a stove or range cooktop. Bakeware comprises cooking vessels intended for use inside an oven...

, and non-functional wares such as sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

. Studio potters can be referred to as ceramic artists, ceramists (ceramicists), or as an artist who uses clay as a medium.

Notable British studio potters

• Tim Andrews
  Tim Andrews
  Tim Andrews is an English studio potter making distinctive smoke-fired and raku ceramics exhibited internationally.Andrews trained as an apprentice to David Leach and studied at Dartington Pottery Training Workshop before setting up his first studio in 1981.He returned to share the workshop at...
  
  
• Gordon Baldwin
  Gordon Baldwin
  Gordon Baldwin born 1932 in Lincoln, England is an influential British studio potter.He studied at Central School of Art and Design and was teacher of Ceramics and Sculpture at Eton College...
  
  
• Svend Bayer
  Svend Bayer
  Svend Bayer is a studio potter described by Michael Cardew as "easily my best pupil."Bayer studied at University of Exeter from 1965 to 1968 and began work at Wenford Bridge Pottery with Michael Cardew in 1969.In 1972 he joined the Brannam Pottery in Barnstaple, where he worked as a thrower for a...
  
  
• Dora Billington
  Dora Billington
  Dora Billington was an English teacher of pottery and a studio potter. She was born into a family of potters in Stoke-on-Trent and studied at Hanley School of Art. She worked as a decorator for Bernard Moore, 1912-1915, and then took a diploma in ceramics at the Royal College of Art 1915-1916...
  
  
• Clive Bowen
  Clive Bowen
  Clive Bowen is described "as a gestural decorator, even something of anaction painter, applying a fluid spontaneity and broad hand to his trailing, pouring and combing....
  
  
• Sandy Brown (potter)
• Michael Casson
  Michael Casson
  Michael Casson OBE born in London, was a studio potter, referred to as "respected and charismatic".He studied art and woodwork at Shoreditch College, and ceramics at Hornsey College of Art., and was one of the founding potters of the Craft Potters’ Association, a co-operative that acquired a shop...
  
  
• Alan Caiger-Smith
  Alan Caiger-Smith
  Alan Caiger-Smith MBE is a British studio potter and writer on pottery.- Life and work :He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He studied at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and read history at King's College, Cambridge...
  
  
• Michael Cardew
  Michael Cardew
  Michael Cardew, OBE, was an English studio potter who worked in West Africa for twenty years.Cardew was the fourth child of Arthur Cardew, a civil servant, and Alexandra Kitchin, the eldest daughter of G.W.Kitchin, the first Chancellor of Durham University...
  
  
• Seth Cardew
  Seth Cardew
  Seth Cardew is an English studio potter. He is the son of the influential potter Michael Cardew and the brother of the composer Cornelius Cardew....
  
  
• Bruce Chivers
  Bruce Chivers
  Bruce Chivers is a studio potter described by writer and art critic Peter Davies "as an artist whose work shines with a flowing lyricism in which decoration is intrinsically linked to form but equally linked to natural random processes of image formation of the kind favoured by the American...
  
  
• Ken Clarke (potter)
• Nic Collins (potter)
• Hans Coper
  Hans Coper
  Hans Coper , was an influential German-born British studio potter. His work is often coupled with that of Lucie Rie due to their close association, even though their best known work differs dramatically, with Rie's being more functional and traditional, while Coper's was much more abstract and...
  
  
• Emmanuel Cooper
  Emmanuel Cooper
  Emmannuel Cooper OBE is a British studio potter and writer on arts and crafts.Cooper studied at the University for the Creative Arts. He also achieved a PhD degree at Middlesex University....
  
  
• Ken Eastman
  Ken Eastman
  Ken Eastman is a British ceramic artist, best known for his austere, flat bottomed, slab built ceramic vessels. He exhibits internationally and has won various awards in the field of ceramic arts, including the ‘Premio Faenza’, Italy in 1995, the ‘Gold Medal’ at the World Ceramic Exposition 2001...
  
  
• Elizabeth Fritsch
  Elizabeth Fritsch
  Elizabeth Fritsch MA CBE is a British studio potter. Her hand built painted pots are often influenced by music, painting, literature and architecture. Fritsch studied harp and then piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1958 to 1964, but later took up ceramics under Hans Coper and Eduardo...
  
  
• Jane Hamlyn
• Lisa Hammond
  Lisa Hammond
  Lisa Hammond is a British studio potter. She is a Fellow of the Craft Potters Association of Britain and its vice chair. She has specialised in vapour glazing since leaving college, first using salt and, since the early 1980s, soda glaze. She produces a range of functional ware for the...
  
  
• Mark Hewitt
  Mark Hewitt
  Mark Hewitt is an English studio potter living in the small town of Pittsboro, North Carolina outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, known for his functional pottery and especially for his large scale wood-fired, salt-glazed ceramic pots, known as "monster pots." His work is influenced by Asian...
  
  
• Agnete Hoy
  Agnete Hoy
  Agnete Hoy , also known as Anita Hoy, is an English artist potter who managed successfully to create a bridge between industrial ceramics and work of the studio potters. Having studied in Copenhagen she went on to work for the Holbæk and Saxbo potteries in the late-1930s before returning to England...
  
  
• Walter Keeler
• Gabriele Koch
  Gabriele Koch
  Gabriele Koch is a studio potter.Koch studied at the University of Heidelberg 1967-73 and later attendedGoldsmiths, University of London, completing a diploma in Art and Design,Ceramics 1979-81."earth,water,air and fire...
  
  
• Bernard Leach
  Bernard Leach
  Bernard Howell Leach, CBE, CH , was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery"-Biography:...
  
  

• David Leach
  David Leach (potter)
  David Andrew Leach was an English studio potter and the eldest son of Bernard Leach and Muriel Hoyle Leach, Bernard's first wife....
  
  
• Janet Leach
  Janet Leach
  Janet Darnell Leach, , was an American studio potter working in later life at St Ives, Cornwall in England. She was married in 1956 to Bernard Leach, the famous British studio potter.-Biography & Work:...
  
  
• John Leach
  John Leach
  John Leach may refer to:*John Leach , English judge*John Leach , Royal Navy captain*John Albert Leach , Australian ornithologist*Johnny Leach, British table tennis player...
  
  
• John Maltby
  John Maltby
  John Maltby in Lincolnshire, England is a distinguished sculptor and studio potter.John Maltby was brought up in Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire...
  
  
• Martin Brothers
  Martin Brothers
  The Martin Brothers were pottery manufacturers in London who are considered to represent the transition from decorative Victorian ceramics to twentieth century studio pottery in England....
  
  
• Magdalene Odundo
  Magdalene Odundo
  Magdalene Anyango Namakhiya Odundo, OBE is a Kenyan-born British studio potter.She was born in Nairobi and received her early education in both India and Kenya. She moved to England in 1971 to continue her training in graphic art. In 1974-1975, she visited Nigeria and Kenya to study traditional...
  
  
• Colin Pearson
  Colin Pearson (potter)
  Colin Pearson was an English studio potter and art teacher.-Biography:Pearson was born in Friern Barnet, London in 1923 and studied at Goldsmiths College, University of London...
  
  
• Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie
  Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie
  Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie was a pioneer in modern English Studio pottery....
  
  
• Lucie Rie
  Lucie Rie
  Dame Lucie Rie, DBE was an Austrian-born British studio potter.-Early life:Lucie Rie was born as Lucie Gomperz in Vienna, Lower Austria, Austria-Hungary the youngest child of Benjamin Gomperz, a Jewish medical doctor who was a consultant to Sigmund Freud. She had two brothers, Paul and Teddy...
  
  
• Phil Rogers (potter)
• Duncan Ross (potter)
• Richard Slee (artist)
  Richard Slee (artist)
  Richard Slee is a British ceramic artist.He studied at Carlisle College of Art and Design , the Central School of Art and Design , from where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in ceramics, and at the Royal College of Art .Slee has been professor of ceramics at Camberwell College of...
  
  
• Martin Smith (potter)
  Martin Smith (potter)
  Martin Smith is professor of ceramics and glass at the Royal College of Art in London.-Work and career:He was born in Essex, England and was educated at Bristol Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art , where he studied the technique of raku...
  
  
• Rupert Spira
  Rupert Spira
  Rupert Spira is an English studio potter. Born in 1960 he first studied pottery with Henry Hammond and later with Michael Cardew at Wenford Bridge Pottery from 1980 to 1982. His early work was reminiscent of these early influences being in a very traditional Bernard Leach style...
  
  
• Julian Stair
  Julian Stair
  Julian Stair is an English studio potter and studied at Camberwell College of Arts and the Royal College of Art, in London....
  
  
• William Staite Murray
  William Staite Murray
  William Staite Murray was an English studio potter.He was born in Deptford, London and attended pottery classes at Camberwell College of Arts from 1909 - 1912. He worked with Cuthbert Hamilton, a member of the Vorticist group, at the Yeoman Pottery in Kensington before joining the army in 1915...
  
  
• Angus Suttie
  Angus Suttie
  Angus Suttie was a studio potter and teacher of art ceramics, most notably at Morley College, London. Suttie studied at Camberwell School of Art under Glennys Barton, Ewen Henderson and Colin Pearson. This education promoted experimentation which rejected the Bernard Leach derived Anglo-oriental...
  
  
• Geoffrey Swindell
• James Tower
• Marianne de Trey
• Judith Trim
  Judith Trim
  Judith Trim was a British studio potter...
  
  
• Edmund De Waal
  Edmund de Waal
  Edmund Arthur Lowndes de Waal OBE is a British ceramic artist, and author of The Hare with Amber Eyes . He has worked as a curator, lecturer, art critic and art historian and is a Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster. He has received several awards and honours for his...
  
  
• Alan Wallwork
• Takeshi Yasuda
  Takeshi Yasuda
  Takeshi Yasuda is a Japanese potter who was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1943. Yasuda trained at the Daisei-Gama Pottery in Mashiko from 1963 to 1966 and established his first studio there. His early work consisted of ash-glazed stoneware, after which he explored Sancai and Creamware. Most recently...
  
  

Notable American (United States) studio potters

• Robert Arneson
  Robert Arneson
  Robert Carston Arneson was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at UC Davis for four decades.- Career :...
  
  
• Rudy Autio
  Rudy Autio
  Rudy Autio was an American sculptor, best known for his figurative ceramic vessels.Rudio Autio was born Arne Rudolph Autio to a family of Finnish immigrants in Butte, Montana. As a child, he first learned to draw by taking evening classes from Works Progress Administration artists working in Butte...
  
  
• Ralph Bacerra
  Ralph Bacerra
  Ralph Bacerra was a ceramic artist and career educator. He lived and worked in Los Angeles, California....
  
  
• Bennett Bean
  Bennett Bean
  Bennett Bean is an American ceramic artist. Although commonly described as a studio potter, some would characterize him as a sculptor and painter who works primarily in studio pottery.Bean resides in Blairstown, New Jersey....
  
  
• Billy Al Bengston
  Billy Al Bengston
  Billy Al Bengston is an American artist and sculptor who lives and works in Venice, California. ‎He was educated at Los Angeles City College Los Angeles, CA , California College of Arts & Crafts Oakland, CA , and the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA .After seeing the work of Jasper Johns at the...
  
  
• Sorcha Boru
  Sorcha Boru
  Sorcha Boru was the assumed or studio name of Claire Everett Stewart, a potter and ceramic sculptor. Most of her works include small items such as figurines, vases, planters and salt and pepper shakers, mostly done in the art deco style...
  
  
• Rose Cabat
  Rose Cabat
  Rose Cabat was born in 1914 in the Bronx, NY.Rose Cabat is an American studio ceramicist, classified as part of the Mid-Century modern movement, living in Arizona, who is best known for her innovative glazes upon small porcelain pots called 'feelies' often in the shape of onions and figs, and...
  
  
• Dora De Larios
• Rupert Deese
  Rupert Deese
  Rupert Deese was an American ceramic artist. He is known for innovative design and decoration of high fired ceramics...
  
  
• Ken Ferguson
• Michael Frimkess
• Edith Heath
  Edith Heath
  Edith Kiertzner Heath was a American studio potter "but soon became involved in the design and production of pottery and tableware on a far larger scale than that of most studio potters." In 1948, Edith founded Heath Ceramics...
  
  
• Otto and Vivika Heino
  Otto and Vivika Heino
  'Otto Heino and Vivika Heino were artists working in ceramics. They collaborated as a husband-and-wife team for thirty-five years, signing their pots Vivika + Otto, regardless of who actually made them.- Otto Heino :One of twelve children born of Finnish immigrants, Lena and August Heino, in East...
  
  
• Cliff Lee
  Cliff Lee (potter)
  Not to be confused with Cliff Lee or Cliff Lee .Cliff Lee is a Taiwanese-born ceramic artist living in Stevens Township, Pennsylvania and known for his meticulously carved and beautifully glazed porcelain pots...
  
  
• Warren MacKenzie
  Warren MacKenzie
  Warren MacKenzie is a North American craft potter. He grew up in Evanston, Illinois the second oldest of five children including his brothers, Fred and Gordon and sisters, Marge and Marilyn. His high school days were spent at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois.MacKenzie studied with...
  
  
• John Mason (artist)
  John Mason (artist)
  John Mason is a contemporary American artist. From very early on, Mason’s work focused on exploring the physical properties of clay and its “extreme plasticity.” Mason is recognized for his focus and steady investigation of mathematical concepts relating to rotation, symmetry, and modules as well...
  
  
• Harrison McIntosh
• Mac McClain
• Hideaki Miyamura
  Hideaki Miyamura
  Hideaki Miyamura is a Japanese-born American potter working in Kensington, New Hampshire. Miyamura is best known for his unique iridescent glazes, including a compelling gold glaze, the "starry night" glaze on a black background, and a blue hare's fur glaze.Miyamura was born in Japan as the son...
  
  

• Mineo Mizuno
• George E. Ohr
  George E. Ohr
  George Edgar Ohr was an American ceramic artist and the self-proclaimed "Mad Potter of Biloxi." In recognition of his innovative experimentation with modern clay forms from 1880–1910, some...
  
  
• Kenneth Price
  Kenneth Price
  Kenneth Price is an American ceramic artist and printmaker who was born in Los Angeles, California in 1935. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, before receiving his BFA degree from the University of Southern California in 1956...
  
  
• Elsa Rady
• Frederick Hurten Rhead
  Frederick Hurten Rhead
  Frederick Hurten Rhead was a native of England who worked as a potter in the United States for most of his career. In addition to teaching pottery techniques, Rhead was highly influential in both studio and commercial pottery...
  
  
• Jerry Rothman
• Adrian Saxe
  Adrian Saxe
  Adrian Saxe is an American ceramic artist who was born in Glendale, California in 1943. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute from 1965 to 1969 and earned a B.F.A. degree at the California Institute of the Arts .Saxe’s early works were primarily site-specific sculpture that employed large...
  
  
• Peter Shire
  Peter Shire
  Peter Shire is a Los Angeles artist. Shire was born in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles, where he currently lives and works. His sculpture, furniture and ceramics have been exhibited in the United States, Italy, France, Japan and Poland; Shire has been associated with the Memphis Group of...
  
  
• Overbeck Sisters
  Overbeck Sisters
  The Overbeck Sisters were four women potters and artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement who worked in Cambridge City, Indiana, from 1911 until 1955....
  
  
• Edwin Scheier
  Edwin Scheier
  Edwin Scheier , was an American artist, best known for his ceramic works with his wife, Mary Scheier.- Early life :...
  
  
• Mary Scheier
  Mary Scheier
  Mary Scheier was a noted American ceramicist, and the wife and artistic partner of Edwin Scheier.-Career:Born Mary Goldsmith in Salem, Virginia, she moved to New York City in 1925 and studied art at the Art Students League of New York, the Grand Central School of Art and the New York School of...
  
  
• Paul Soldner
  Paul Soldner
  Paul Soldner was an American ceramic artist.- Biography :...
  
  
• Janice Roosevelt
• Henry Takemoto
• Robert C. Turner
  Robert C. Turner
  Robert Chapman Turner was an American potter known for his functional pottery, sculptural vessels and inspired teaching....
  
  
• Peter Voulkos
  Peter Voulkos
  Peter Voulkos popular name of Panagiotis Voulkos, was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his Abstract Expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art....
  
  
• Marguerite Wildenhain
  Marguerite Wildenhain
  Marguerite Wildenhain , born Marguerite Friedlaender, was a French-born American ceramic artist, educator and author. In the second half of her life, having emigrated to the U.S...
  
  
• Beatrice Wood
  Beatrice Wood
  Beatrice Wood was an American artist and studio potter, who late in life was dubbed the "Mama of Dada," and served as a partial inspiration for the character of Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron's 1997 film, Titanic...
  
  
• Betty Woodman
  Betty Woodman
  Betty Woodman is an American artist.- Work and Influences :Internationally recognized as one of today’s most important sculptors using ceramics, Betty Woodman's career began in the 1950s as a production potter with the aim of creating beautiful objects to enhance everyday life...
  
  

Notable New Zealand studio potters

• Doreen Blumhardt
  Doreen Blumhardt
  Dame Doreen Blumhardt, ONZ, DNZM, CBE was a New Zealand potter, ceramicist and arts educator.-Career:...
  
  
• Kelvin Bradford
• Barry Brickell
• Len Castle
  Len Castle
  Leonard Ramsay "Len" Castle, DCNZM, CBE was a renowned New Zealand potter.Born in Auckland in 1924, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1946 from University of Auckland and trained as a secondary school teacher, eventually taking a lecturing position at the Auckland College of Education...
  
  
• Doris Dutch
• Peter Lange
• Helen Mason (potter)
• John Parker (potter)
• Richard Parker (potter)
• Patricia Perrin
• Yvonne Rust
• Mirek Smíšek
• Peter Stichbury (potter)
• Graeme Storm (potter)
• Warren Tippett
• Michael Trumic