Lawson Ernest Rudge, raku figure of a Donkey

Size:  35 cm long, 20 cm tall.

Condition: Very good condition. There is no damage or restoration. 

Lawson Ernest Rudge (1936-2026) was a talented and idiosyncratic artist and this fairly small figure of a donkey is an unusual and very characterful example of his work. 

The donkey wears his saddle in an impossibly incorrect position and the saddle has a backcloth with the number 5 on it, a classic Lawson Rudge trope.  The donkey is winking with right right eye and the left eye is painted in the very clever way Lawson uses to give brilliance and clarity.

Having trained at the Royal College of Art in the swinging sixties (at the same time as David Hockney), Lawson moved to Devon, where he moved into ceramics, making some very unusual and striking pieces in cast slipware.  His development of animal raku figures was also an innovation at the time.  He is probably best known for his flat cow figures, but the underlying theme of all his work is humour and a love of the familiar.  Three of Lawson's children followed him into making raku animals, and their work is sometimes confused with his, but their styles are all different.  Lawson was not a great publicist and made his living quietly selling through galleries, but he was also a highly respected and loved teacher of ceramics.

Lawson seldom signed his work and this piece is not signed.