Profile
About
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.
Edmund de Waal is an artist who writes. Much of his work is about the contingency of memory: bringing particular histories of loss and exile into renewed life. Both his artistic and written practice have broken new ground through their critical engagement with the history and potential of ceramics, as well as with architecture, music, dance and poetry. De Waal continually investigates themes of diaspora, memorial and materiality with his interventions and artworks made for diverse spaces and museums worldwide including The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire; the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris; The British Museum, London; The Frick Collection, New York; Museo Ebraico, Venice; Schindler House, Los Angeles; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna and V&A Museum, London.
De Waal is also renowned for his bestselling family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), The White Road (2015), and Letters to Camondo (2021). His latest book an Archive (2025), published with Ivorypress, is an archival gathering together of texts that reflect on both his own family archives and the archives of the writers, artists, and spaces that he has spent years inhabiting.
He was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction by Yale University in 2015. In 2021 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and awarded a CBE for his services to art. In 2023 he received the Isamu Noguchi Award. In 2024 he was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
b.1964 Nottingham. He lives and works in London.
Please click here for a full biography.
Photo: Tom Jamieson
Biography
| 2024 | Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Award |
| 2023 | Isamu Noguchi Award |
| 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 |
|
| 2024 | letters home. Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin |
| 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 [curated by Edmund de Waal]. Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Perry Green The Hare With Amber Eyes [curated by Stephen Brown and Shira Backer in collaboration with Edmund de Waal]. 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 [curated by Edmund de Waal]. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Irrkunst. Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin ten thousand things. Gagosian Gallery, Beverley Hills |
| 2015 | white: a project by Edmund de Waal [curated by Edmund de Waal]. 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 [curated by Edmund de Waal]. 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 |
|
| 2025 | Picturesque Pottery. Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art, Tokyo Seven Heavenly Senses. Hôtel de la Marine, Paris Potential Colour. Galerie Max Hetzler, London Sound of the Earth. Ceramics in Contemporary Art. Kunstmsuem Appenzall, Switzerland Loewe Salon del Mobile. Palazzo Citterio, Milan The Life of Things. Museum Voorlinden, Netherlands Place. New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury |
| 2024 | British Studio Pottery and the V&A. Victoria & Albert Museum, London From Then to Now. Glyndebourne, East Sussex 5&20. 99 Bishopsgate, London Mind the Gap: Selections from the Permanent Collection. Georgia Museum of Art Memory and Migration. The Warburg Institute, London Golds. Ordovas, London Fragments of Memory. Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden Essence. New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury IN MARGINE: Frame, Plinth, Vitrine. 8smicka gallery, Humpolec, Czech Republic Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto. CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark and Kunstsilo, Kristiansand, Norway All About The Vessel. Kunstquartier Gmunden, Bad Ischl, Austria The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester |
| 2023 | Rudolf Levy (1875 – 1944) Magician of Colour. Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto [curated by Edmund de Waal]. 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 | Kneaded Knowledge: The Language of Ceramics [curated by Edmund de Waal and Ai Wei Wei in collaboration with Peter Pakesch]. Kunsthaus Graz, Graz 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
- Georgia Museum of Art
- Government Art Collection, London
- Heythrop College, London
- IBM Collection, Copenhagen
- Ismay Collection, Yorkshire Museum
- Kunstsilo, Norway
- 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
- Museu d’Art Contemporani d’Eivissa, Ibiza
- 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 (formerly the Geffrye Museum), London
- Museum of Western Australia, Perth
- Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern
- National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
- National Museum and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff
- Pallant House, Chichester
- Pier Arts Centre, Orkney
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
- Schroeder’s Bank, London
- Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
- St Georges’ Hospital, London
- Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
- Stoke-on-Trent Museum
- The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, London
- The University Church of Christ the King, London
- Trinity Hall, Cambridge
- University of Cambridge
- Usher Gallery, Lincoln
- Victoria & Albert Museum, London
- Voorlinden Museum, The Netherlands
- Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
- World Ceramic Exposition Museum, Ichon, Korea
- York Museum and Art Gallery