Julian Stair

Who is Julian Stair?

Julian Stair is an English potter, academic and writer. He makes groups of work using a variety of materials, from fine glazed porcelain to coarse engineering brick clays. His work ranges in scale from hand-sized cups and teapots to monumental jars at over 6 feet tall and weighing half a ton.

Stair has exhibited internationally over the last 30 years and has work in over twenty public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, British Council, American Museum of Art & Design, Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Boymans Museum, Netherlands. In 2004 he was awarded the European Achievement Award by the World Crafts Council for the project Extended Inhumation, and received a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship to research the making of monumental ceramics at Wienerberger’s brick factory in Sedgley. In 2008 the Art Fund purchased Monumental Jar V for Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.

His most recent project was the solo exhibition Quietus: The Vessel, Death and the Human Body which was commissioned by mima and supported by Arts Council England.