Edmund de Waal is one of the world’s leading artists working in ceramics today.
He became fascinated with ceramics at an early age and vividly remembers making his first pot at the age of five. He read English at Cambridge and was apprenticed to the potter, Geoffrey Whiting. He spent a further year studying at the Mejiro Ceramics Studio in Tokyo.
Edmund started his ceramic career making functional stoneware pots on the Welsh borders and then moved to Sheffield where he started working with porcelain, describing it as, “the great taboo material; it doesn’t do any of the ?proper’ work of a pot”. He studied Japanese both in Sheffield and whilst working at the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo, and throughout the 90s continued to develop the making of porcelain objects in a way that was to epitomise his style.
Edmund is also widely known as an award-winning writer. In 2010, his book, The Hare with Amber Eyes, became an international bestseller. He was appointed a Trustee of the V&A.
De Waal was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to art. He was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to the arts.
