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JAMIESON Edmundde Waal38 SF edit for web

I’ve always loved the idea of the mutability of things. . . . Nothing is forever. . . . There’s an inherent instability about how objects work in space.

In his visual art and literary works, Edmund de Waal uses objects as vehicles for human narrative, emotion and history. His installations of handmade porcelain vessels, often contained in minimalist structures, investigate themes of diaspora, memory and materiality.

Born in Nottingham, England, de Waal apprenticed with the renowned potter Geoffrey Whiting from 1981 to 1983, an experience that catalysed his interest in bridging Chinese and Japanese ceramic traditions with medieval English techniques. De Waal went on to receive a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge in 1986, followed in 1991 by a Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation scholarship, which he used to obtain a postgraduate diploma in Japanese language from the University of Sheffield and to study at the Mejiro Ceramics studio in Tokyo. While in Japan he began writing a monograph on Bernard Leach, the “father” of British studio pottery.

Upon returning to London in 1993, de Waal shifted his focus from stoneware to porcelain and began to experiment with arrangements of objects, such as teapots, bottles and jugs. Groupings or “cargos” of irregular porcelain vessels would become central to his work, fluctuating in scale and breadth over the years. One of de Waal’s first major architectural interventions came in 2002 with The Porcelain Room at the Geffrye Museum (now the Museum of the Home), London, in which he arranged 650 vessels on shelves and within cavities in the floor and ceiling of a chamber illuminated by a porcelain window.

I’ve always loved the idea of the mutability of things. . . . Nothing is forever. . . . There’s an inherent instability about how objects work in space.

In his visual art and literary works, Edmund de Waal uses objects as vehicles for human narrative, emotion and history. His installations of handmade porcelain vessels, often contained in minimalist structures, investigate themes of diaspora, memory and materiality.

Born in Nottingham, England, de Waal apprenticed with the renowned potter Geoffrey Whiting from 1981 to 1983, an experience that catalysed his interest in bridging Chinese and Japanese ceramic traditions with medieval English techniques. De Waal went on to receive a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge in 1986, followed in 1991 by a Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation scholarship, which he used to obtain a postgraduate diploma in Japanese language from the University of Sheffield and to study at the Mejiro Ceramics studio in Tokyo. While in Japan he began writing a monograph on Bernard Leach, the “father” of British studio pottery.

Upon returning to London in 1993, de Waal shifted his focus from stoneware to porcelain and began to experiment with arrangements of objects, such as teapots, bottles and jugs. Groupings or “cargos” of irregular porcelain vessels would become central to his work, fluctuating in scale and breadth over the years. One of de Waal’s first major architectural interventions came in 2002 with The Porcelain Room at the Geffrye Museum (now the Museum of the Home), London, in which he arranged 650 vessels on shelves and within cavities in the floor and ceiling of a chamber illuminated by a porcelain window.

Thinking of the crafting and placement of ceramic vessels as a form of poetry, de Waal has continued to transform spaces with his objects. Signs & Wonders (2009) at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, saw 425 glazed porcelain vessels positioned on a red shelf along the inner ledge of the museum’s uppermost cupola—a love letter of sorts to the museum’s collection and a celebration of its new ceramics galleries. In 2019, the exhibition elective affinities juxtaposed de Waal’s vessels with illustrious works from the Frick Collection, New York.

De Waal’s sculptural practice, writing and art historical research are deeply intertwined, as he works across mediums and collaborates with museums, poets, performers, musicians and other visual artists, both living and deceased. During the Night at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, de Waal’s 2016 exhibition inspired by a drawing of a nightmare by Albrecht Dürer, was the product of three years of research into the museum’s collection, during which he studied such remarkable objects as sixteenth-century corals and paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

In 2018, de Waal collaborated with choreographer Wayne McGregor, designing the set for McGregor’s new ballet, Yugen, performed at London’s Royal Opera House. That same year he worked with composer Simon Fisher Turner on an exhibition titled –one way or other– at the Schindler House in West Hollywood, California.

To coincide with the 58th Biennale di Venezia the following year, de Waal presented psalm—a two-part exhibition at the Museo Ebraico and the Ateneo Veneto that reflected upon Venice’s literary and musical heritage. The library of exile (2019), a pavilion built within the Ateneo Veneto, brought together two thousand books, most in translation, by exiled writers from Ovid’s time to the present day. Following its presentation in Venice, the project traveled to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany, in 2020, and then to the British Museum, London. In 2021 the books were donated to the University of Mosul library in Iraq, which was destroyed in 2015.

An acclaimed writer himself, de Waal published his international bestseller The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance in 2010. This memoir about loss, diaspora and the survival of objects won the Costa Book Award for Biography (2010) and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize (2011) and has been translated into over thirty languages. De Waal was awarded the Windham Campbell Prize for nonfiction by Yale University in 2015, and that same year he published The White Road: a pilgrimage of sorts, an intimate history of porcelain told via the stories of those whose lives have been profoundly touched by the material.

Letters to Camondo, published in April 2021, is de Waal’s haunting sequence of imagined letters to the historical figure Count Moïse de Camondo (1860–1935)—the owner of a Parisian mansion filled with beautiful objects, which he turned into a memorial for his lost son. The mansion has since become the Musée Nissim de Camondo, which has remained unchanged since 1936. Through detailed explorations of the museum’s archives and collections, the letters and an accompanying exhibition uncover new layers of the family story.

Much of de Waal’s work is concerned with collecting and collections—how objects are kept together, lost, stolen or dispersed. His ceramics and writing expand upon conceptual and physical dialogues among minimalism, architecture and sound, imbuing them with a sense of quiet calm. However, their meditative quality is neither neutral nor ambivalent. Manifest across de Waal’s practice is a distinct aesthetic philosophy that puts the hand, touch and thus the human above all else. It is about connecting people by reviving and telling stories that matter.

Photo: Tom Jamieson

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Biography
2021 Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for Services to the Arts
2021 Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
2020-2023 Member of the Young V&A Committee
2016 Honorary Doctorate, University of York
2015 Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-Fiction, Yale University
2014 Honorary Doctorate, University of Nottingham
2014 Honorary Doctorate, Canterbury Christ Church University
2013 Honorary Doctorate, University of the Arts, London
2013 Honorary Doctorate of Letters, University of Sheffield
2012 Senior Fellowship, Royal College of Art, London
2012-2022 Member of the Advisory Committee for The Royal Mint
2011-2024 Trustee of the Gilbert Trust
2011-2019 Trustee of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
2011 Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for Services to the Arts
2011 Costa Biography Award, Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
2009 Honorary Fellow, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
2004-2010 Chair of Trustees, Crafts Study Centre, Farnham
2003 Silver Medal, World Ceramics Exposition, Icheon, Korea
1999-2001 Fellowship, The Leverhulme Trust
1996 Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
1991-1993 Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Scholarship
1991–1992 Post-graduate Diploma in Japanese Language, University of Sheffield
1983–1986 BA Hons. English Literature (First Class), Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
1985 Scholarship, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
1981–1983 Apprenticeship with Geoffrey Whiting, Canterbury
Exhibitions
Selected solo exhibitions and installations

2023 this must be the place. Gagosian, New York
2022 de Waal +. Gagosian Gallery, Burlington Arcade, London
Edmund de Waal and Unseen Pieces from The Feuerle Collection. The Feuerle Collection, Berlin
we live here, forever taking leave. Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire
their bright traces. Gana Art Center, Seoul
2021 Lettres à Camondo. Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris.
This Living Hand: Edmund de Waal presents Henry Moore. Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Perry Green
The Hare With Amber Eyes. Jewish Museum, New York, NY
sukkah. Canterbury Cathedral, Kent
2020 library of exile. British Museum, London
tacet. New Art Centre, Salisbury
cold mountain clay. Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong
some winter pots. Gagosian Gallery, London
2019 breath. Ivorypress, Madrid
psalm. Jewish Museum and Ateneo Veneto, Venice
Elective Affinities. Frick Collection, New York
a sort of speech. Galerie Maz Hetzler, Berlin
im Goldhaus. Pozellansammlung, Dresden
library of exile. Japanisches Palais, Dresden
2018 the poems of our climate. Gagosian Gallery, San Francisco
– one way or other –. The Schindler House, Los Angeles
white island. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Ibiza, Ibiza
Early work: vessels from the Rosenheimer Collection. New Art Centre, Wiltshire
Yugen. Set design for Wayne McGregor's ballet at the Royal Opera House, London
2017 Morandi / Edmund de Waal. Artipelag, Stockholm
Lettres de Londres. Espace Muraille, Geneva
2016 During the Night. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Kneaded Knowledge: The Language of Ceramics. Kunsthaus Graz, Graz
Irrkunst. Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
ten thousand things. Gagosian Gallery, Beverley Hills
2015 white. Royal Academy of Arts, London
If we attend. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
2014 Atmosphere. Turner Contemporary, Margate
Lichtzwang. Theseus Temple, Vienna
another hour. Southwark Cathedral, London
2013 Atemwende. Gagosian Gallery, New York
On White: Porcelain Stories from the Fitzwilliam Museum. Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge
2012 a thousand hours. Alan Cristea Gallery, London
a local history. Alison Richard Building, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
Edmund de Waal at Waddesdon. Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire
2010 From Zero. Alan Cristea Gallery, London
night works. New Art Centre, Salisbury
2009 Signs & Wonders. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Very Moveable Things: An Intervention. Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum,
Gloucestershire
2007 A Sounding Line. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire
Edmund de Waal at Kettle’s Yard, mima and elsewhere. Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough
2006 Vessel, perhaps. Millgate Museum, Newark-on-Trent
2005 A line around a shadow. Blackwell: The Arts & Crafts House, Bowness-on-Windermere
Arcanum: mapping 18th-Century European porcelain. National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff
2004 Porcelain Room. Kunstindustrimuseet, Copenhagen
2002 A Long Line West. Egg, London
Porcelain Room. Geffrye Museum (now Museum of the Home), London
1999 Modern Home. High Cross House, Dartington Hall, Devon
1998 Egg, London
Selected group exhibitions

2023 Rudolf Levy (1875 – 1944) Magician of Colour. Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern
Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto. CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Denmark
to light, and then return— : Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann. Gagosian, New York
The 7th Guangzhou Triennial: Symphony of All the Changes. Guangdong Museum, Guangzhou
2022 Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art. Hayward Gallery, London
Living With Art We Love. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire
Sensational Books. Bodleian Library, Oxford
that other world, the world of the teapot. tenderness, a model. Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover
The Fourth Dimension: To the Future of Vessels. Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan
Norman McBeath and Edmund de Waal: Perdendosi. The Fine Art Society, Edinburgh
2021 The Flames: The Age of Ceramics. Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris
Imago Mundi. Centro de Iniciativas Culturales, University of Seville
Morandi. Resonancia infinita. Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid
Masterpieces in Miniature: The 2021 Model Art Gallery. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
2020 Duino Elegies. Gagosian, Madison Avenue, New York
Blanc sur Blanc. Gagosian, Paris
2018 Samla, sortera, ta hand om. RIAN Design Museum, Falkenberg, Sweden
The Precious Clay: Contemporary art and porcelain at the Museum of Royal Worcester. Museum of Royal Worcester
Jessica Stockholder, Stuff Matters. Centraal Museum, Utrecht
2017 Orchestra of Letters. The Lettering Arts Centre, Snape Maltings
Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Benjamin and Brecht. Thinking in Extremes, Academy of Arts, Berlin
2016 la mia ceramica. Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris
Seeing Round Corners. Turner Contemporary, Margate
FOUND. Foundling Museum, London
Artificial Realities. The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
Generosity: On the Art of Giving. Kinsky Palace, Prague
2015 CERAMIX. Cité de la céramique, Sèvres; Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht
Resistance and Persistence. Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
Modern Japanese Design. Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester
the lost and the found: work from Orkney. New Art Centre, Salisbury
wavespeech. Pier Arts Centre, Orkney
Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector. Barbican Art Gallery, London; Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich
Chromophobia. Gagosian Gallery, Geneva
2014 Then and Now. Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
Group Show. Gagosian Gallery, Paris
2010 The Artists’ House. New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury
2009 Kettle’s Yard at Tate Britain. Tate Britain, London
2008 Inside/Outside. New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury
2007 The Long View. New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury
Garry Fabian Miller & Edmund de Waal. Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
2006 Still Life. New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury
2005 Premio Faenza: The International Competition of Ceramic Art, Museo
Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenze, Italy
Transformations: Language of Craft. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
2004 A Secret History of Clay. Tate Liverpool, Liverpool
Publications
Selected catalogues and monographs

2023 Playing with Fire. Forgalet Press, Oslo. Texts by Edmund de Waal, Axel Salto and Sanne Flyvbjerg
to light, and then return—. Gagosian, New York
2022 Perdendosi, The Fine Art Society, Edinburgh. Text by Edmund de Waal
their bright traces, Gana Art Center, Seoul, South Korea
2021 Lettres à Camondo. Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris
2020 Library of Exile. The British Museum, London. Texts by Edmund de Waal, Hartwig Fischer and Elif Shafak
2019 elective affinities. The Frick Collection, New York. Texts by Edmund de Waal and Charlotte Vignon
2018 wavespeech. Wunderkammer Press. Texts by Edmund de Waal, David Ward and Rhona Warwick Paterson
2017 Edmund de Waal / Morandi. Artipelag, Stockholm. Texts by Bo Nilsson, Edmund de Waal, Jorunn Veiteberg and Frederik Sjöberg
2016 During the Night. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Texts by Lisa Appignanesi, Jasper Sharp and Edmund de Waal
Kneaded Knowledge: The Language of Ceramics. Kunsthaus Graz, Graz. Texts by Peter Pakesch and Edmund de Waal
Irrkunst. Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin. Text by Edmund de Waal
ten thousand things. Gagosian Gallery, Beverley Hills. Text by Joan Simon
2015 white. Royal Academy of Arts, London. Text by Edmund de Waal
2014 Atmosphere. Turner Contemporary, Margate. Text by Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal. Phaidon, London. Texts by Emma Crichton-Miller, Colm Toíbín, Peter Carey, A.S. Byatt, Alexandra Munroe, Deborah Saunt and Edmund de Waal
2013 Atemwende. Gagosian Gallery, New York. Text by Adam Gopnik
On White: Porcelain Stories from the Fitzwilliam Museum. Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge. Text by Edmund de Waal
2012 a thousand hours. Alan Cristea Gallery, London. Text by Colm Toíbín
Edmund de Waal at Waddesdon Manor. Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire. Text by Juliet Carey and Edmund de Waal
2010 From Zero. Alan Cristea Gallery, London. Text by A.S. Byatt
2009 Signs & Wonders. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Texts by Alun Graves,
Glenn Adamson and Edmund de Waal
2007 Edmund de Waal at Kettle’s Yard, mima and elsewhere. Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge;
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough. Texts by Jorunn
Veiteberg, Helen Waters and a conversation between David Hills, Elizabeth Fisher and Edmund de Waal
2005 Edmund de Waal: A line around a shadow. Blackwell House: The Arts & Crafts House, Bowness-on- Windermere. Texts by Alun Graves and Simon Olding
Arcanum: mapping 18th century European porcelain. National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff. Texts by Sebastian Kuhn, James Putnam, Edmund de Waal and a conversation between Jorunn Veiteberg and Bodil Busk Laursen
2004 A Secret History of Clay: From Gauguin to Gormley. Tate Liverpool, Liverpool. Texts by Simon Groom, Edmund de Waal and interviews with James Putnam and Antony Gormley
1999 Modern Home. High Cross House, Dartington Hall, Devon. Texts by Mike Tooby and Edmund de Waal
Public collections
  • Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
  • Banque Paribas, London
  • Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
  • British Council, London
  • Cartwright Hall, Bradford
  • Chatsworth House, Derbyshire
  • Contemporary Arts Society, London
  • Crafts Council, London
  • Crafts Study Centre, Farnham
  • Dimensional, London
  • Fidelity, London
  • Fidelity, Luxembourg
  • Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
  • Government Art Collection, London
  • Heythrop College, London
  • IBM Collection, Copenhagen
  • Ismay Collection, Yorkshire Museum
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art
  • Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
  • Middlebury College, Vermont
  • Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
  • Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt
  • Museum of Arts and Design, New York
  • Museum of Decorative Arts, Montreal
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
  • Museum of the Home, London
  • Museum of Western Australia, Perth
  • National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
  • National Museum and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff
  • Pallant House, Chichester
  • Pier Arts Centre, Orkney
  • Schroeder’s Bank, London
  • Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
  • St Georges’ Hospital, London
  • Stoke-on-Trent Museum
  • The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, London
  • The University Church of Christ the King, London
  • Trinity Hall, Cambridge
  • Victoria & Albert Museum, London
  • Voorlinden Museum, The Netherlands
  • Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
  • World Ceramic Exposition Museum, Ichon, Korea
  • York Museum and Art Gallery