Work of the Week | Edmund de Waal, late work, 2023
Edmund de Waal
late work
2023
Porcelain, lead, gold, yellow ochre and aluminium
50 x 20 x 16.2 cm
19 ¾ x 7 ⅞ x 6 ⅜ in.
With a quiet and mysterious presence, late work hangs on the wall of the Artist House by a large window, bathed in natural light. Its composition, although simple, implies meticulous intent, as if the slight tilt of the vessel were angled degree by degree, before being settled, quite at home in its finished form. When working in white, Edmund de Waal makes it clear that there is 'not some infinite spiritual end', but instead there is a movement 'from something that is white into all kinds of other places.' His continuation into working with black - white's chromatic opposite - was a result of two years of endeavour in the early 2010s, to make 'glazes that go from very metallic to almost bright mirror black.' As with the infinite variety in white, in de Waal's use of black there is not one singular tone or shade, but a spectrum, heightened with the striking use of gold, which glows against the vessel form.
Edmund De Waal (b. 1964) lives and works in London, and is known for the way his practice spans both visual and literary disciplines. Much of his work is thematically concerned with memory, and through his artistic and written practice he has brought nuanced engagement with the history and potential of ceramics, as well as with architecture, music, dance and poetry. He was made an OBE in 2011, and in 2021 was made a CBE for his Services to the Arts. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2021. De Waal was on the Advisory Committee for the Royal Mint and was a Trustee of the V&A Museum between 2011 – 2019. He was a Trustee of the Gilbert Trust between 2011 – 2024, and a member of the Young V&A Committee between 2020 – 2023. In 2015, he was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction by Yale University. His latest book, an Archive was published in 2025 with Ivorypress. In 2023 he received the Isamu Noguchi Award. In 2024 he was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. De Waal has received honorary doctorates from the University of the Arts London, Nottingham, Sheffield, York and Canterbury Christ Church universities and is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Edmund de Waal
heimkehr
2012
Porcelain, wood and lead
Overall: 57 x 80 x 16 cm / 1ft 10 ½ x 2ft 7 ½ x 6 ¼ in.
Each shelf: 17 x 80 x 16 cm / 6 ¾ x 2ft 7 ½ x 6 ¼ in.
Vessel dimensions vary
A decade on from his exhibition, During the Night (2016) at the Kuntshistorisches Museum, Vienna, on 26th March, Edmund de Waal shall deliverHeimkehr: the poetry of return. The lecture will give insight to de Waal's creative forms of restitution, with a focus on projects such as library of exile (2019-2021) and Letters to Camondo, a book written during lockdown, composed of fifty letters to the long-dead Count Moïse de Camondo, a neighbour of de Waal’s ancestors, the Ephrussi.
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