RESEARCH
DR GRAHAM MCLAREN
My research activity within Bath School of Art and Design builds on a career background as an historian of art and design, specialising in the history of ceramics and glass. I have published 3 monographs on aspects of the history of British ceramics and a further book on contemporary glass. I have contributed to texts on national identity in design and Utility design edited by Jonathon Woodham and Judy Attfield respectively.
During the past year research outputs have included papers to the Design Research Society Conference (Lisbon 2006) and the Design History Society Conference (Delft 2006). In December 2007 I was invited to present a paper to the ‘All the Difference’ symposium at the University of Akron, Ohio.
My current research activity focuses on the completion of a substantial text commissioned by Manchester University Press. The Culture of Ceramics considers the significance and impact of the material upon Western culture during the period 1700-2000.
The study of ceramics forms a crucial approach to understanding past cultures. The near indestructibility of the material, having been made and consumed by almost every society from the Neolithic period means that ceramics form the basis of much archaeological research and many museum collections. The fascination with the Classical past, together with the huge value placed upon Oriental porcelain established ceramics as an area of scholarly enquiry and public interest from the late seventeenth century onwards.
In many ways developments in the design and use of ceramics mirror the growing sophistication of Western culture. In the twentieth century changing approaches to using and making ceramics have challenged our understanding of terms such as 'Art', 'Craft', and 'Industry', paralleling the changing attitudes of Western society towards both design and lifestyles. This is true in technological terms as well. Whether in the 18th century experiments of Josiah Wedgwood, or the present day development of metal-ceramics and the ceramic super-conductors that will undoubtedly play an important role in our future lives, ceramics have historically been a 'leading edge' technology.
Ironically a strong scholarly background, arising largely out of the twin traditions of industrial archaeology and of connoisseurship has been as much a hindrance as a help to writing on the subject. There has been a tendency to concentrate on attribution, on the producer and the product, rather than the function of ceramics as a consumed item. Very little has been published which attempts to place ceramics in a social or cultural context, or indeed to analyse the historiography of the subject to any degree. The Culture of Ceramics is intended to directly address these shortcomings.