Richard Batterham (1936 – 2021) was one of the most prominent studio potters of his time. He lives and worked in Durweston, Dorset for over 60 years. In this time, he developed a distinctive style that would leave his work instantly recognisable, despite never signing or marking his work. Dorset Museum & Art Gallery’s collection holds over 30 pieces.
Richard Batterham (1936-2021) was born in Woking, Surrey and moved to Dorset with his family during World War I. He trained at Bryanston School where he started making pots aged 13, under the guidance of Donald Potter (1902 – 2004), a Dorset potter, sculptor, and teacher. This is where Batterham’s love for the craft began, and he decided he would like to become a potter.
In 1957, Batterham undertook a two-year apprenticeship at Leach Pottery in St Ives, Cornwall. During his time there, he met a number of influential potters who he learnt from, as well as meeting his wife, Dinah Dunn (1930 – 2007). After completing his apprenticeship in 1959, the pair moved into a house in Durweston, Dorset, which is where Batterham started putting his own studio into place.
Batterham’s pottery studio grew from small beginnings; initially a pottery wheel in his house and a kiln that he built at the end of his garden. He sold pots from his home and started establishing regular customers, as well as contacting local retailers to sell his wares.
With his customer base expanding, in 1966, Batterham decided to purchase a piece of land across the road from his house, in order to build a pottery where he could meet ever-growing demand. He designed a functional space that allowed him to produce pots on a larger scale, as well as display his work for those visiting. The building featured a large kiln in the middle, with separate rooms for throwing and glazing, mixing clay, storage space and a showroom.
Despite growing numbers of customers, Batterham always worked alone, seeing through every aspect of his pots, from concept to reality, something that was important to the Studio Pottery movement. He even produced his own mixes of clay, predominantly working with stoneware clay, fired at a high temperature, used for creating robust and practical items. Many of Batterham’s pots were inspired by everyday life, including for practical uses in his home and he produced hundreds of pots a year.
Batterham’s independence as a potter allowed him to develop his own unique style through forms, glazes and markings, and build a name for himself in Studio Pottery circles. Instead of delicately decorating his pots, he opted to use techniques to change their surface, such as creating ribs, beating, combing, fluting and cutting away slices of clay, as you can see with his cut-sided vessels.
The glazes are also what makes Batterham’s pots unique, as he spent time testing and developing his own iron and ash glaze recipes. These were not always applied over the whole pots, often leaving sections unglazed, adding to the range of different textures and surfaces that made up the beauty of his designs.
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