Waistel Cooper 1921-2003

Waistel Cooper was a visionary potter, instrumental in revolutionising British ceramics with his unique, rough-textured, sculptural style. During the early part of his career, his work was regularly exhibited alongside his contemporaries, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, showing at Henry Rothschild’s era-defining Primavera Gallery on London’s Sloane Street. Yet due to Waistel’s isolated lifestyle and reluctance to exhibit after 1970, his place as a pioneer of ceramic work at the forefront of modernist art was diminished to the point of near obscurity by the 1990s.

It was in 1994 that the curator and design historian Lesley Jackson organised a major retrospective of Waistel’s pottery at Manchester City Art Gallery, re-asserting his place in the modernist pantheon. He had never ceased making or showing pottery from his home studio but – buoyed by the renewed interest – Waistel resumed exhibiting until his death in 2003. That should have been a moment for consolidation. But despite eulogies by the likes of Emmanuel Cooper, comparing his work to the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, no book about him was published and knowledge of his work waned again.

The moment for reassessment has come around once more. Waistel Cooper deserves a place in history not only amongst the best potters of the 20th century, but in the annals of the greatest British artists.

Photograph by Andrés Kolbeinsson (1919-2009), courtesy of Ljósmyndasafn Reykjavíkur / Reykjavík Museum of Photography, Iceland

Waistel Cooper

Ovoid trefoil aperture vase, 1950s
with a speckled satin ash glaze and firing blush
signed ‘Waistel’ to the base
Merryfield, Porlock
stoneware
15 x 18 cm

Waistel Cooper

Sculptural dual-form vase , 1960s
with narrow neck, goblet form lip, lugs to the shoulders, a rough textured dark brown surface, and a satin-glazed oatmeal interior with iron spatters
signed ‘Waistel’ to the base
Culbone
stoneware
36 x 27 cm

Waistel Cooper

Pedestal tazza form vase, 1960s
decorated with sgraffito lines, on a rough textured cream and dark brown surface, and a heavily impastoed oatmeal and rust gloss-glazed interior
signed ‘Waistel’ to the base
Culbone
stoneware
20.5 x 25.5 cm

Waistel Cooper

Ovoid 'pebble' vase , 1960s
with incised lip and a textured cream and black speckled surface
signed ‘Waistel’ to the base
Culbone
stoneware
14 x 16 cm

Waistel Cooper

Goblet form vase, 1960s
with a rough textured rust surface, and an oatmeal glazed interior with manganese spatters
signed ‘Waistel’ to the base
Culbone
stoneware
22 x 13.5 cm

Waistel Cooper

Monumental vase of baluster form, 1970s
with an incised neck and flared rim, and a rough textured rust surface decorated with horizontal carved bands, and an oatmeal satin glazed interior with spattered manganese
signed ‘Waistel’ to the base
Culbone
stoneware
43.5 x 20 cm

Waistel Cooper

Large baluster lamp base of globular form, c. 1968 - 1972
decorated with a textured fern patterning in rust and cream
signed ‘Waistel’ to the base
Culbone
stoneware
22 x 23 cm