Joanna Constantinidis née Connell, (12 December 1927 – 1 August 2000) was an English potter and ceramic artist.
Biography
Constantinidis was born in
York
York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...
and grew up in
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...
where she attended Ecclesfield Grammar School between 1939 and 1945 before studying painting at Sheffield Art College until 1949. At Sheffield she was introduced to ceramics and pottery making and in 1951 became a ceramics lecturer at Chelmsford Technical College, later part of the Essex Institute of Higher Education. This position, which she held until her, early, retirement in 1989, allowed Constantinidis to experiment and develop her own style and technical abilities. In time she developed innovative methods of throwing, firing and glazing pots.
In the early 1950s Constantinidis exhibited somewhat traditional examples of pottery, inspired by industrial wares and Staffordshire slipware, with the
Red Rose Guild
The Red Rose Guild was a guild based in Manchester, with the aim to promote British arts and crafts. It was “regarded as the most influential national outlet for makers” in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. The Guild was ...
and the British Crafts Centre but in the late 1950s, influenced by the works of
Lucie Rie
Dame Lucie Rie, (16 March 1902 – 1 April 1995) () was an Austrian-born, independent, British studio potter. She is known for her extensive technical knowledge, her meticulously detailed experimentation with glazes and with firing and her unu ...
and
Hans Coper
Hans Coper (8 April 1920 – 16 June 1981) was an influential German-born British studio potter. His work is often coupled with that of Lucie Rie due to their close association, even though their best known work differs dramatically, wit ...
changed her style. Working at a studio she set up at
Great Baddow
Great Baddow is a major village and civil parish in the Chelmsford borough of Essex, England. It is close to the city of Chelmsford and, with a population of over 13,000, She developed painstaking methods to produce work that emphasized purity and harmony of both shape and decoration. In the 1970s her pottery became sculptural and her pots were often greatly reworked by cutting and folding after being created on her potters' wheel.
In the later decades of her life Constantinidis' produced tall cylinders and bowls based on simple elegant lines. In her last years she created some notable individual pots and a set of porcelain table ware. In early 2000 she suffered a stroke but was able to complete work for a solo exhibition held at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
in May that year. As well as the Victoria and Albert Museum, many public collections hold examples of her work including the National Museum of Modern Art in
Kyoto
Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...
. In 1978 Constantinidis won a medal of honour at the
Premio Faenza
The Premio Faenza is an international prize for contemporary ceramic art. It is awarded by the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, in Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, and is the principal Italian prize of its kind.
History
The ...
international ceramics exhibition and in 1995 a touring retrospective exhibition of her work was organised by the
University of Derby
The University of Derby, formerly known as Derby College, is a public university in the city of Derby, England. It traces its history back to the establishment of the Derby Diocesan Institution for the training of schoolmistresses in 1851. It ...