“Could I live without clay? ” Women and ceramics in the collections of National Museums Scotland (NMS)

Claire Blakey is Senior Curator of Modern Decorative Arts at National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh. She has worked in museums across the UK, curating numerous exhibitions and publishing on topics including majolica, maiolica, the trade in Staffordshire pottery and East Asian ceramics. Her talk will introduce listeners to some of the highlights of National Museums Scotland’s European ceramics collection and will go on to explore some of the works made and/or designed by women, from the 19th century to the present day. In no way a comprehensive survey, but a journey through creativity and clay, including works by more well-known names such as Hannah and Florence Barlow and Gwendolen Parnell and those whose work in ceramics is less celebrated today, such as Ann Macbeth and Jessie Marion King, and beyond Britain to the work of Portuguese ceramic artists Rosa and Júlia Ramalho.