Former Crediton artist John Maltby's work featured on Antiques Roadshow

AN item of work by former Crediton ceramic artist John Maltby was recently featured on the BBC Antiques Roadshow.

A sculpture of a bird by John Maltby was one of the three items presenter Fiona Bruce had to select in the right order in the “Basic, Better, Best” competition of three items.

The item was valued at £1,000 but Fiona was unable to complete the three choices in the right order.

John Maltby, a distinguished English sculptor and skilled studio potter, based at Stoneshill near Sandford, died, aged 84, on December 22, 2020.

He was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, on July 15, 1936, into a family that was in the fish merchant business.

After school John took a degree course at Leicester College of Art, specialising in sculpture, and then spent a year at Goldsmiths covering a broad range of arts.

For a couple of years he was an art teacher at Caterham School, and while there met and married Heather Helmore, who was matron at the school.

When John and Heather came to the Westcountry for their summer holiday in 1962, John visited Bernard Leach in St Ives.

Bernard then introduced him to his son David, who had his own pottery in Bovey Tracey. It proved pivotal; John made the critical decision to give up teaching to become David’s apprentice for two years.

John then took the significant step of starting his own pottery at Stoneshill in 1964 and he was still working there until the last days of his life.

He started by making functional Leach-style pots, but, always one to value work in a personally relevant way, he started producing – very - individual pieces.

Eclectic and enthusiastic, John was interested in so many things, from the sea, through architecture and myth, to music and this became very evident in the form and decoration of his work.

He was tall, with a huge frame and crafters hands.

By the eighties John had achieved the status, which he retained for the rest of his life, of being one of the best known and most liked and respected ceramic artists in the UK.

His work seemed to have universal appeal, appreciated by artists, students and collectors alike.

John received numerous awards for his work and he is widely represented in a number of public collections, including the V and A in London and others in Edinburgh, Aberystwyth, Belfast, Exeter, Leicester, and Faenza in Italy and Hamburg in Germany.

He was a member of the Craftsmen Potters Association of Great Britain and the British Crafts Centre, and was an advisor to the Leach Archive at the Holbourne of Menstrie Museum in Bath.

He shared his love of the arts freely, he was an inspirational mentor, he wrote many articles and often gave lively talks and demonstrations of his work.

Making both single figure and groups, and, more recently, producing wall works, he introduced a new cast of characters: birds, kings, queens and angels. This was the style that he stayed with for the rest of his life.