Artist/Maker: Alan and Ruth Barrett Danes - Aberystwyth University School of Art Museums and Galleries

School of Art Collections

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School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk

Alan and Ruth Barrett Danes

Born: Alan:1935, Ruth: 1940, UK, England, Kent, Rainham (Alan), Plymouth (Ruth) Died: Alan:2004, UK, England, London

Ceramacists.For Alan Barrett-Danes, whose family had worked at the Upchurch Pottery in Kent, his move from industrial pottery to studio pottery was seen as a betrayal to his working class background. He had become disheartened with his work as a designer in the potteries in Stoke-on-Trent, and moved to Abergavenny in Wales when he was offered a teaching position as a lecturer at Cardiff College of Art in the mid 1960s. He was an influential teacher for over 30 years. Ruth who had trained in illustration, got a job as an arts and crafts tutor in a hospital, training students to become occupational therapists. When they moved to Wales, Alan particularly became enchanted with slugs and fungi in soil ecosystems encountered on their walks at The Wenalt in Cardiff, and initially made some work around this theme. Ruth also started to experiment with ceramics as she was enthused by the attitudes and ideas of the younger generation of students in Cardiff, with whom she came in to contact with through Alan. In the mid 1970s, they began to work together and made a series of work called Cabbage Kingdoms making sculptural pieces of figures modelled by Ruth, emerging from thrown pieces by Alan. The contrast of Ruth’s figures “dynamic, struggling, nightmarish” enveloped in Alan’s delicate lustred forms, invited comparisons of their work to Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), William Blake (1757-1827), Richard Dadd (1817-1876) and Mervyn Peake (1911-1978). Ruth eventually found it uncomfortable to impose on Alan’s shapes, and he equally found it hard to anticipate forms she could work with, therefore, it was a natural and mutual decision to make independent work. Alan made 'pelican' pots influenced by his grandfather; these were small pots and jugs, decorated with lustre, while Ruth made dancing animal figures which received international acclaim in the late 1980s. She rejoined Alan after his retirement, this time decorating his domestic ware with figurative illustrations.

Objects in the collections associated with this artist/maker