Globular vessel: C.474-2016

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2016) by Shakeshaft, John, Dr

Dating

20th Century
After 1922 CE - Before 1994-12 CE

Note

Ursula Mommens (née Darwin,1908-2010), born in Cambridge, was a great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin and a descendant of Josiah Wedgwood; at school she learned music from Gustav Holst. Inspired by a pottery demonstration at the Ideal Home Exhibition, she studied first with Dora Billington at the Central School of Art and Design and then with William Staite Murray at the Royal College of Art before establishing her own pottery in Kent. In 1935 she moved to London, but after her pottery there was destroyed by wartime bombing she worked with Michael Cardew at both Winchcombe and Wenford Bridge. She believed in making pots that people could use. Her early work was vibrantly coloured earthenware; later she worked sometimes in porcelain but mainly stoneware, using iron and wood ash glazes, sometimes with incised or painted foliate or fish motifs. Mommens, who lived to the age of 101, was married to the artist and poet Julian Trevelyan RA from 1935-50 and the sculptor Norman Mommens, c.1952-62.