Gallery FUMI is pleased to present Crockery: an exhibition of new works by designer Max Lamb in collaboration with 1882 Ltd., a contemporary ceramics factory based in Stoke-on-Trent, opening on 11 September 2025. The works are crafted using slip-cast earthenware from plaster models meticulously carved by hand. An embodiment of the innovative spirit of both Lamb and 1882 Ltd., this series challenges the conventional perception of ceramics as delicate and unsuitable for functional design.
The result of a creative dialogue between Max Lamb and 1882 Ltd., Crockery is a groundbreaking new series of chairs and stools conceptualised to challenge our inherent understanding of clay’s material and functional possibilities. In all its undertakings, 1882 Ltd. has a firm foothold in the overlap between industrial craftsmanship and innovative design, a positioning they share with Lamb. Under the directorship of Em Johnson, the multi-generational expertise of1882 Ltd. offers the foundation essential to enable Lamb’s material provocations.
Each chair and stool in Crockery is the product of an extended arc of craft. Beginning with Lamb’s hand, maker and tool labour to sculpt repeated intrusions into plaster block, revealing what will be the irregular surface of the final work. Through this act, Lamb shapes the chiselled forms of chair or stool, objects which have long held focus in his practice. These forms are transferred to the expertise of 1882 Ltd.’s potters, standing as master models for moulds then employed in a traditional slip-casting technique. Here, liquid clay is poured and tipped, taking the form authored by Lamb, and then being set to rest for the weeks of temperature-controlled stasis required for the clay to harden. The final wonder of the material is the revelation of its hue, with each shade in this series–white, black, and a soft blush pink– the effect of firing, rather than an intervention by any maker.
Clay is not a material that will bend to a maker’s impatience. It can be neither hurried nor disturbed. Even in the case of radical experimentation, there are some hallmarks of the process that one cannot swerve. Environment, timing, and trust are vital. The material demands weeks to dry, a deft hand in its pouring, and precise assessment in its firing. Each step presents abundant opportunity for error, yet a narrow interstice for perfection, such is the level of difficulty to craft functional furniture in ceramics.
This is a feat, a first, a frontier. The success of these works hinged upon both Lamb’s immunity to deterrence when courting a question of materiality and 1882 Ltd.’s unflinching willingness to push their mastery of ceramics not only to but past its assumed limits. Every element of these works bears the imprint of collaboration, evidence of co-conspirators both daring and undaunted. Crockery presents not only chairs and stools, but a bold statement on craftsmanship and collaboration.
