Robin Welch b. 1936

  • Artist (Ceramist)
Welch was a ceramic artist active as a potter, painter and print-maker. He trained UK, immigrated to Australia, returned to UK where his career was celebrated with major commissions.

(NB:“the following text has been taken from a short piece I (Victor Greenaway) wrote in 2007 for inclusion in a publication celebrating Robin’s retrospective exhibition at the Rufford Craft Centre”) https://www.facebook.com/victor.greenaway.1 (7/12/2019)

Robin Welch: a continuing inspiration

It was the autumn of 1965 when a young student on holiday from the country picked up a small article in the local paper about the new gallery, the Craft Centre, opening up close to the centre of Melbourne, announcing the opening of an exhibition.

As the seventeen old wandered in, almost aimlessly,
to check it out, he stopped in his tracks and gazed around. Quite suddenly he experienced a flood of emotion, a slight racing of his heart as he held his breath. The pots that lay before him were like nothing he had ever seen before – powerful, cylindrical columns of jugs, beakers and tall vases some with broad flanges bursting out at right angles, large, no, huge bowls of perfect forms based on the hemisphere but lofty with forms reaching up and out spreading off narrow bases.

There were sets of dinner plates with generous, wide and robust rims, straight-sided mugs with perfectly formed pulled handles, sets of hemispherical bowls with distinctive camphored rims leading back into the form. And the colour! The colour was astonishing with bands of red rust, rich ochres and yellows and the most magnificent green/blue breaking to black matt glazes.

Who was this man? Who was behind this powerful collection of work which moved so easily through beautifully formed domestic pots to strong sculptural forms? With what little money the young student could muster, he carefully selected and bought a small bowl, a modest purchase from part of a series of groups of bowls. This precious piece was the symbol of all he had saw and felt that day. On the base was carefully painted in iron-oxide, “Robin Welch.”

This was the artist I grew to admire from afar.
But it wasn’t until 1975 on a visit to the UK that we finally met in person. We had a mutual friend and colleague, mentor to me and close friend to Robin, in Ian Sprague. Robin had joined up with Ian in Melbourne, Australia in 1962 to help set up Ian’s Mungeribar Pottery and had stayed on for 3 years, living in the small weatherboard cottage on Ian’s property that was eventually to become home for myself and my young family.

After those 3 years in residence Robin returned to England to set up his own pottery in Stradbroke. It was not long after his departure that I became apprenticed to Ian, working in the studio Robin had helped establish, feeling his influence and seeing remains of his work everywhere. Rejects of work lay throughout the studio complex, I ate from dinner plates Robin had made and left behind, drank coffee from his mugs and filled beakers from his tall cylindrical pitchers. Sculptural forms nestled in the garden and sprouted from the walkways.

Over the intervening years there was a correspondence between Robin and Ian with Ian often sharing news from Stradbroke over our morning coffee. By the time Robin and I finally met I felt I already knew him, through his work and through the personal reminiscences shared with Ian. It was an easy first meeting of mutual respect and admiration and shared friendships.
In all this time Robin has maintained an impressive exhibition record with shows around the world, including Australia.

His contribution to studio ceramics has been remarkable, both in the scale of production work produced in the modern style of the ‘60s and ‘70s, on through the ‘80s and ‘90s with a greater interest in more free-form hand and slab building, to the present day where much of his artistry is exemplified on canvas in the beautifully simple, strong graphic textures of his paintings and drawings.

It was only 2 or 3 years ago when Robin and Jenny were visiting with us in my studio on the Gippsland Lakes that I carefully retrieved a small object from the back of the tall, glass-cased cabinet and handed it to him. It was that same precious token I had bought as a young man, holding all the aspirations and hope that I would one day get to know the master of these beautiful works, to understand the commitment, dedication and passion it takes to make such a body of work and to have the skills to execute it with all the mastery, precision, freedom and simplicity that this one little bowl held. As with all the great body of work Robin has produced over all these years there is still no pretence about what he is doing. He is simply a master artist who has it all completely in hand.”

Writers:

7write6
Michael Bogle
Date written:
2021
Last updated:
2021