ALAN BOYSON BIOGRAPHY (1930—2018)
Written by Alan’s son, Matthew.
Published here with permission from Matthew.

Alan Boyson was a muralist, ceramicist and sculptor who produced an extensive body of public art across the UK in the second half of the 20^th century. However, while he left a considerable, albeit diminished, public footprint he had virtually no public profile as an artist. He trained initially in ceramics, which formed the basis of his early works, but he soon moved on to other media which, over fifty years, included mosaic, fibreglass, resin and paper, stainless steel, Perspex, aluminium, wood, concrete, canvas, and glass. Boyson may not have consciously adopted the Beethoven aphorism ‘Art demands of us that we shall not stand still’ as a mantra but he certainly embodied the philosophy behind it. He died in August 2018.

Boyson was born in Marple, Cheshire (now Greater Manchester) in 1930, the son of a clerk, and subsequently manager, of the local Co-operative Society.[1] He attended Hyde Grammar school until 1948 and then spent eighteen months in the Middle East with the Royal Engineers. After national service he spent four years studying pottery at the Regional College of Art, Manchester under C.L. Campion. In 1954 he graduated, won the Heywood prize (certificate of merit for design and silver medal) and then moved to London to undertake postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Art.[2]

His three years at the RCA left him somewhat disillusioned and frustrated because of the college’s policy of producing graduates for the ceramics industry in Stoke-on-Trent. Reflecting forty years later, Boyson was dismissive of his years at the RCA, describing them as ‘a waste of time’ in which he ‘learnt nothing.’ Even so, it is hard to imagine he got nothing out of the experience; at least, it must have provided him with time to develop as a potter and hone his own creative instincts. Nevertheless, he was proud of being the best ‘thrower’ in the class, but less than impressed when, on one occasion, a ceramics lecturer asked to watch him throwing a pot to see how it was done. According to fellow student Neal French, Boyson was the principal rebel against the college’s mission to produce industrial designers.[3]

This tension is reflected in the modest final diploma result he received from the RCA, and, even more starkly, in some of the very conservative and conventional ceramics he produced at the college.[4] Works like his earthenware teapots, white butter dish or slip cast cruet set in white earthenware have little in common with his later works or, indeed, with some of the pieces he produced at Manchester. Instead they respond to the demands of the course requirements rather than reflect his own artistic inclinations. Nevertheless, despite the RCA’s academic constraints, Neal French says that Boyson ‘found ways to do wares that fitted his ideas of industry’ and his own style does come through.[5] If nothing else, his RCA work does demonstrate that he was a very gifted craftsman who had a clear mastery of technique.

Boyson left the RCA in 1957 and with the help of a reference letter from C.L. Campion (perhaps another example of his disconnect with the RCA) secured a teaching position at Wolverhampton College of Art (later part of Wolverhampton Polytechnic and then the University of Wolverhampton) where he taught for three years.[6] However, conceivably the excitement of a first job was tempered by the same frustrations that Boyson experienced at the RCA as, at least in 1950/51, the prospectus of the college stated, ‘It is the policy of the College to maintain and develop the closest possible relations with industry and Employers are invited to collaborate with the Principal in arranging new courses of training that may be necessary for their employees’. Indeed, Don Womack, a fellow-student at Manchester, had the impression that Boyson was ‘thoroughly disappointed’ by what he found at Wolverhampton.[7]

While teaching in Wolverhampton, Boyson set up the first of his own studios/workshops and began to receive commissions both from and through colleagues at the college as well as from his father-in-law, Henry Braddock.[8] Early works included ceramic tiles and panels for private houses and the first of what would be several commissions for churches, in this case, Digbeth-in-the-Field Congregational Church, Birmingham in 1959. This work consisted of eight 12” square ceramic tiles set on either side of a doorway which were typical of Boyson’s style and technique at this time. The tiles use sunken relief with a typically dark glaze infill to create a clear contrast, while shapes are stylised, often figurative and typically skeletal in form. Two of the tiles contain a fish in the centre and this skeletal representation of animals such as fish, birds, including owls, and cockerels is typical not only of his tiles but also his other ceramic work, such as plates, pots and vases. Forty similar tiles were used on the now demolished CEGB offices in Guildford, and twenty-nine were used at George Cruikshank greengrocers in Denton, and these are still thought to be in situ but hidden behind roller-shutters.

Sponge-printing was another method Boyson employed in the early and mid-1960s. He generally used 6” square Hereford tiles with outline geometrical shapes or bird or flower forms, often reminiscent of his larger relief tiles. They were generally made up into panels to decorate the walls of lobbies or entrance areas. This type of tiling was used at Cromwell Secondary School for Girls, Salford (1962); the Co-operative building in Hull (1963); Pendleton College, Salford (1964); Wednesfield St. Albans Primary School, Wolverhampton (1965); and blocks of flats in Walsall (1966). Except for the recently discovered work in the Hull Co-op the other examples of Boyson’s sponge printing have now been lost.

The sponge-printed tiles in Walsall were the last example of Boyson using ceramics in his public commissions as other media came to dominate his output. This was paralleled with a decline in his production of small-scale ceramics such as pots, plates and dishes. In fact, the latter occupied two distinct phases of his life; the first when he was a student and teacher, up until the early 1960s; and the second in the 1990s after he set up a dedicated ‘pot room’ in a Methodist chapel in Yorkshire that he restored.

These two distinct periods are also reflected in the type of ceramics he was producing. In the first, there were examples of quite conventional pieces in terms of style and decoration, such as his punch bowl and tots. Some of this work was aimed at being more commercially attractive, an example of which is the series of plant pot holders from around 1959. Nevertheless, the development of his own individual style of design and decoration is evident in his work at this time. This is the case with a number of three-dimensional owls that he made in 1959, two of which were displayed at the Design Centre in London. The smallest of these is 270 mm high and features incised decoration and a dark green glaze over a white base. Many of the motifs in his public art are also reflected in his smaller pieces, such as stylised birds and fishes.

If this early period in Boyson’s small-scale ceramics was typified by colour and imagery, the dominant features of his later period are form and texture. After an effective hiatus of around thirty years there is a very clear shift in the elements that informed and inspired his artistic narrative.

He moved away from the use of his signature features, such as stylised birds, animals and fish, to more abstract forms and, on his plates particularly, geometric patterns. His later work also shows a move towards less functional and more decorative ceramics, of which his Janus Jug is a good example. While his use of colour still tended to be muted or monotone some works stand out because of their occasional and unexpected use of colour. His time as an active potter came to an end in 2005 when he sold the former Methodist chapel and moved to a property in mid-Wales, where he was unable to establish another ‘pot room’.