Edmund de Waal

News

Join artists Magdalene Odundo and Edmund de Waal, both of whom appear in Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, as they discuss clay’s intricacies as a medium.

De Waal's 2014 installation, atmosphere, shown here installed at Turner Contemporary, Margate, will be part of the exhibition.

Photography: Mike Bruce.

At Hatchards, Piccadilly, to celebrate the paperback publication of his book Letters to Camondo, de Waal discussed his exploration of the Camondos’ lavish rooms and detailed archives which led him to write this haunting series of letters to the Count, reflecting on the events that so scarred 20th-century Europe.

Photograph: Ben McKee

Edmund de Waal was in conversation with Chad Coerver, executive director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco for the Jewish Learning Works Marsha Rivkind Raleigh Memorial Lecture.

Photo: Ben McKee

At this year's Hay Festival, Edmund de Waal joined art historian, curator and broadcaster Katy Hessel to discuss Letters to Camondo. Click the link below for a recording via the Hay Player (subscription required).

Photo: Tom Jamieson

In this short, illustrated talk as part of the Bernard Leach Conference, Edmund de Waal will look at projects dealing with memory and restitution including his library of exile and exhibitions in Vienna, Paris and New York.

Photo: Ben McKee

A conversation with Edmund de Waal and E. Randol Schoenberg, Jewish genealogist and the well-known attorney who recovered the Klimt paintings from Austria. This event is part of the JewishGen series, run in conjunction with The Jewish Museum, New York and the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.

Photo: Tom Jamieson

In an episode for Always Authors, a new podcast featuring candid conversations between two authors, Edmund de Waal joins the acclaimed writer André Aciman in conversation about their work, lives, and favourite books.

Photo: Eamonn McCabe

To mark the 70th anniversary of Jewish Book Week, Edmund de Waal will deliver the keynote address on the final day of Jewish Book Week.

Photo: Eamonn McCabe

As part of London Review of Books’ That Year Again series, Ange Mlinko, Don Paterson and Edmund de Waal discuss Rilke’s ‘savage creative storm’.

Photo: Ben McKee

As part of the Charleston Literary Festival, Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria & Albert Museum and author of The Radical Potter: The Life and Times of Josiah Wedgwood, and Edmund de Waal explore their obsessions with ceramics and objects and how that has led to journeys into porcelain, abolitionism and the holocaust.

Photo: Ben McKee

As part of Jewish Book Week, Edmund de Waal will be in conversation Washington Post Paris Correspondent James Mcauley, chaired by Anne Sebba.

Photography: Porte Cochère of the Musée Nissim de Camondo, 63, rue de Monceau, circa 2007. © MAD, Paris / Jean-Marie del Moral

On the Financial Times Weekend Festival Arts Stage, Edmund de Waal talks to FT Arts Editor, Jan Dalley about Letters to Camondo, and about placing his contemporary work in dialogue with another era.

Photography: Tom Jamieson

Join James McAuley and Edmund de Waal as they discuss this powerful history of Jewish art collectors in France, and how an embrace of art and beauty was met with hatred and destruction.

Photo: Room of Nissim de Camondo. Paris, Musée Nissim de Camondo. © MAD, Paris / Jean-Marie del Moral

Edmund de Waal is in conversation with curator Richard Calvocoressi as part of the programme to accompany the exhibition The Human Touch at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This pre-recorded talk explores the creativity of the artist’s hands and the marks and traces they leave. The talk is followed by a live Q&A session with the exhibition curators.

Photography: Ben McKee

For BBC Radio 3's series The Essay, de Waal reads five essays on migration, pots, and potters, including Magdalene Odundo (above), Hans Coper and Josiah Wedgwood. Listen again here.

Ceramicist Magdalene Odundo DBE in her studio at home near Farnham, Surrey. Photo: Rick Pushinsky

In Refugee Week, Anne McElvoy and her guests, Edmund de Waal, Frances Stonor Saunders, Fariha Shaikh and Jasleen Kaur, look at what it means to have to move your family and belongings.

Photography: Ben McKee

Hosted by the Jewish Museum, New York, a conversation between Edmund de Waal and writer Adam Gopnik to celebrate the launch of Letters to Camondo.

Photography: Portrait of Adam Gopnik by Brigitte Lacombe; portrait of Edmund de Waal by Tom Jamieson

Edmund de Waal discussed his most recent book, Letters to Camondo, at this online event with the How To Academy.

Photography: Edward Park

In this live streamed event, Edmund de Waal discusses Letters to Camondo with Village Books, Dulwich.

Photography: Edward Park

An evening of art, science and deeply personal storytelling, with Edmund de Waal, Sam Lee, Horatio Clare, Suzanne O'Sullivan and Walter Isaacson.

Photography: Edward Park

Edmund de Waal joins Olivier Gabet for an online conversation, chaired by Tristram Hunt, in celebration of the publication of Letters to Camondo.

Image: Victoria & Albert Museum

In this talk, hosted by Crafts, de Waal discuss the meaning of craft today, its relationship to contemporary art, and his new book, Letters to Camondo, out in April, with the curator and critic Glenn Adamson, Crafts’ editor-at-large.

Photography: Rob McKeever

A musical celebration to mark the end of the installation of library of exile, before the books move to their permanent home in Mosul. Musician, composer and television presenter Soumik Datta presented an evening of performances inspired by the installation.

The event included readings from Edmund de Waal and other acclaimed guest writers who have participated in the programme of online discussions inspired by the library throughout 2020.

With the installation now closed to the public, the books within the library will travel to their final home in Iraq, at the University of Mosul, with the kind participation of Book Aid International.

This event was presented in collaboration with English PEN, Soumik Datta Arts and the United Nations Regional Information Centre.

The event was broadcast on the British Museum Events YouTube channel at 18.00 on Friday 29 January and included live captioning.

Photo: Hélène Binet

For this Goethe-Institut event, Edmund de Waal joins Rosie Goldsmith, A.L. Kennedy, Baroness Mary Goudie, Niloo Shafari, and Sharmaine Lovegrove to consider Europe and reflect what they are feeling during this time, especially in the midst of the Covid 19 crisis which makes us feel boundaries and distances more acutely again.

Photo: Ben McKee

The discussion is chaired by English PEN President, Philippe Sands QC, and features contemporary artist and writer Edmund de Waal; Chilean novelist Alia Trabucco Zerán, whose debut novel La Resta (The Remainder) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize; and British Palestinian fiction-writer Selma Dabbagh, whose first novel, Out of It, set between London, Gaza and the Gulf, was listed as a Guardian Book of the Year in 2011 and 2012.

This is one of four thought-provoking events exploring the themes inspired by the library of exile, presented in collaboration with Edmund de Waal and human rights organisation English PEN

Photo: Hélène Binet

Join Richard Ovenden, director of the world-famous Bodleian Libraries, as he discusses his new publication, Burning the Books, with Edmund de Waal.

Their conversation will explore the historic destruction of libraries and archives, many of the names of which are written into the walls of the library of exile.

As Ovenden explains, libraries are far more than stores of literature. Through preserving legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship, they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens. Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before.

This panel discussion explores the interconnected nature of climate change and migration and accompanies the current British Museum / Citi exhibition, Arctic: culture and climate and Edmund de Waal's library of exile installation.

Panellists include indigenous Arctic writer, spoken word poet and curator, Taqralik Partridge; Shaul Bassi, Director of the International Center for the Humanities and Social Change at Ca'Foscari University of Venice; and James Thornton, an environmental lawyer and writer. The New Statesman named Thornton as one of 10 people who could change the world.

Edmund de Waal joins Whitechapel Gallery director Iwona Blazwick to discuss the exhibition Kai Althoff goes with Bernard Leach, on view until 10 January 2021.

Photography: Ben McKee

A timely and urgent discussion exploring how literature can represent the experience of migration and exile, as part of Edmund de Waal’s library of exile at the British Museum.

Chaired by de Waal, it features Booker-shortlisted novelist and human rights activist Elif Shafak, EBRD Prize-winning writer and journalist Hamid Ismailov, and world-renowned journalist, broadcaster and writer Kavita Puri.

This is one of four thought-provoking events exploring the themes inspired by the library of exile, presented in collaboration with de Waal, English PEN, and the British Museum.

The installation and its accompanying public programme has been made possible with the support of the AKO Foundation.

Click the below link to view a recording of the discussion.

Over the coming weeks, PEN Transmissions, in collaboration with the British Museum and Edmund de Waal, is publishing a series of essays on the theme of exile. This series speaks to de Waal’s library of exile, currently housed at the Museum. In this interview to introduce the series, de Waal speaks to Hannah Trevarthen (English PEN’s Events and Partnerships Manager) about the installation.

Photography: Fulvio Orsenigo

Edmund de Waal will be in conversation with Aanchal Malhotra, whose book Remnants of Partition is included in the library of exile. Watch online at Jaipur Literary Festival's website, link below.

Photography: Ben McKee

Edmund de Waal will be discussing the library of exile as part of Jewish Book Week in this special event.

Photography: Ben McKee

Delivered at the opening of Elective Affinities, this lecture explores de Waal's long relationship with the Frick and the meanings of collecting within his own life and artistic practice. Click below to play.

Photography: Christopher Burke

Part of the psalm cultural programme, a special series of events, curated together with the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. For more details, please see the psalm website.

For this event, Edmund de Waal was joined by Lisa Appignanesi, Laura Forti, Helon Habila, Danielle McLaughlin, Sabine Scholl at the Ateneo Veneto, Venice.

Photo: Fulvio Orsenigo

In this illustrated lecture, de Waal explores the way he works and some of the connections between his family stories and most recent exhibitions and projects in Vienna, at the Venice Biennale, and at the Frick Collection, New York.

Photo: Fulvio Oresnigo

This year's Kirker Lecture coincides with the unveiling of Edmund de Waal's major work for the Ghetto in Venice. Drawing on the themes of his psalm project - the poetry of exile, the co-existence of different communities and languages and the history of translation in Venice over the course of a thousand years, Edmund de Waal will consider the rich heritage of the Ghetto as a place of exchange in many different senses. This event is in aid of Venice in Peril.

Photo: Fulvio Orsenigo

This March, Edmund de Waal will be contributing to an evening held in honour of the alchemist and inventor, Johann Friedrich Böttger, on the 300th anniversary of his death. De Waal will be reading from his most recent book, The White Road (2015), and discussing Böttger’s legacy, along with that of his mentor, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus.

De Waal will also be revealing his plans for a new installation commissioned for the Porzellansammlung’s extraordinary collection.

Admission is free. Please click below for more information and use the Anmelden button to register.

Photo: Page from Böttger's notebook showing his first porcelain tests, 15 January 1708. © Meissen Couture.

The annual Gomes Lecture at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, delivered this February by Edmund de Waal, was entitled In Touch: Objects, Families, Stories. Previous lecturers include Neil McGregor, Sandy Nairne, and Professor Alison Richard. Click the speaker icon below for an audio recording of the lecture.

Photo: Ben McKee

To mark the 20th an­niver­sary of the adop­tion of the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is con­ven­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence of spe­cial­ists: 20 Years Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples: Roadmap for the Fu­ture, at the Haus der Kul­turen der Welt in Berlin.

As part of the programme, Edmund de Waal will be delivering a lecture entitled On the Eve of Departure: Objects, Families, Stories. Click below for ticket registration information.

Photo: Ansgar Koreng / CC BY-SA 3.0 (DE), CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Terms of license

Irish author Mark O’Connell been awarded the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize for his extraordinary debut To Be a Machine: Adventures among cyborgs, utopians, hackers and the futurists solving the modest problem of death. The prize judging panel of five people was this year chaired by Edmund de Waal, and includes neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow, journalists Bryony Gordon and Sumit Paul-Choudhury, and writer Sophie Ratcliffe. De Waal described the book as "a passionate, entertaining and cogent examination of those who would choose to live forever".

Photo: Eamon McCabe

In honour of the late Martin Roth, de Waal was invited to give the inaugural lecture set up in his friend's memory. De Waal's talk, I walk the line: Art on the border, was delivered in January at the Albertinum in Dresden. Click below to listen to a recording of the lecture.

Photo: © Jorg Blobelt. CC BY-SA 4.0, License terms

In his first talk for the Leo Baeck Institute, entitled 'On the eve of departure: Art and Exile', Edmund de Waal will talk about the telling of family stories through words and sculpture, touching on his writing of The Hare with Amber Eyes and works by Paul Celan and Walter Benjamin.

Photo: Ben McKee

For this annual lecture for the Centre of Ceramic Art as part of York University and York Art Gallery, Edmund de Waal will explore a history of obsession with porcelain and will discuss his recent projects in Vienna, Stockholm and Los Angeles.

Photography: Kaly99 Licence details

Following on from a major collaboration in 2015, Edmund de Waal joins forces with Aurora Orchestra again, this time to explore the backdrop to Richard Strauss' work Metamorphosen. De Waal will take the audience on a tour around the ruins of German cities at the end of World War II before a live performance with guest conductor Andrew Marwood.

Photography: By Ungry Young Man from Vienna, Austria Licence details

To celebrate the opening of Edmund de Waal's exhibition, During the Night, the Kunsthistorisches Museum will be opening their doors for an all night programme of tours, talks, live music and readings. Join de Waal at 2.00am in the galleries to hear some of the stories and secrets behind particular objects in the exhibition.

Photography: Photography © KHM-Museumsverband

Edmund de Waal has been invited to give the annual Pilkington Lecture for the Friends of Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. His talk, entitled Give it shadow enough: Art and memory, will explore the intersections between the visual arts, poetry and memory making and draw on his own practice as a maker and that of other 20th century artists. The talk will be followed by supper in the galleries.

Photography: Citysuitesimages Licence details

Edmund de Waal joins this year's Erasmus Prize winner, AS Byatt, to talk about her life and writing.

Photography: C messier Licence details

This November Edmund de Waal has been invited to give the keynote lecture for the Israel Museum's annual International Symposium on Collecting and Provenance. He will talk about the writing of The Hare with Amber Eyes, restitution and the history of lost collections.

Photography: צילום:ד"ר אבישי טייכר, Licence details

Edmund de Waal will be talking at The Chatsworth Festival, Art Out Loud, a festival of talks by artists, curators and writers.

Photography: Rob Bendall Licence details

‘I do not want art for a few’: Crafting Democracy

At the heart of the arts and crafts movement is democracy, a crossing of boundaries between work and life. This talk will reflect on how craft is interdisciplinary and how William Morris continues to influence making, writing and talking about craft today.

Walter Benjamin, Memory and Berlin

Edmund de Waal will be in conversation with Dr. Martin Roth, director of the V&A, at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

Photography: Jensens Licence details

Edmund de Waal will be talking with Mark Fisher at the Ledbury Poetry Festival about his Desert Island Poems: the poems that have mattered to him throughout his life.

Photography: Ben McKee

For his lecture On Homelessness Edmund de Waal talked about place and displacement in poetry and the visual arts, from the German emigre poet Paul Celan to his own work as an artist and writer.

Photography: Ben McKee

Edmund de Waal has been awarded the prestigious Windham Campbell prize for non-fiction for his memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes.

Photography: Ed Park

To mark the launch of white at the Royal Academy and the publication of The White Road, Edmund de Waal has collaborated with Aurora Orchestra to create a programme of events across London this Autumn, exploring the colour white through music, poetry and the visual arts.

Photography: Mike Bruce

Edmund de Waal delivered the 2015 British Art Lecture at Tate Britain, London.

Photography: Anthony O'Neil, Licence details

Phaidon has now published a monograph about Edmund de Waal's work and practice. The book is the most comprehensive survey of his career to date and features texts by Emma Crichton-Miller, AS Byatt, Colm Toibin and Peter Carey. To celebrate its publication, de Waal gave a talk at the Victoria and Albert Museum about how and why he started making ceramics, the influences of other makers on his work, and future projects he is working towards.

Photography: Edward Park

Following a year of filming with Alan Yentob, the Imagine documentary on Edmund de Waal's studio life and practice was broadcast on BBC One on 5th November. The film covers a remarkable year; from moving studios, travelling across Europe to research his next book, to sitting at his wheel and making thousands of vessels for his first major exhibition in the USA with Gagosian, New York.

Photography: Ben McKee

Edmund de Waal delivered a secular sermon on the art of tact, at Conway Hall as part of The School of Life's Sunday Sermons series.

Photography: Ben McKee