Kristine Michael

Kristine Michael

Pioneers of the Indian pottery movement

Ceramic artist and scholar

In this visit I concentrated on the 19th century and used the National Art Library at the V&A and the British Library as well as studying museum and archival collections in Alton, Nottingham, Brighton, Swansea, Stoke-on-Trent, Osborne House etc. On both my two visits to the UK under the auspices of the NTICVA I had a simply charged time, absorbing everything, particularly the intense discussions with the Indian section at the V&A Museum as to how to present objects in a historical framework, and in the wider perspective of  a post-colonial setting. I do not think I would have got that sort of mind-broadening experience under any other scholarship system. On my return to India, I had a great deal of field work to follow up on, and received a grant for two years under the craft and documentation scheme from the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore. On my other professional side as a practising artist, I had two solo exhibitions at Art Heritage , New Delhi (2000) and the Cymroza Gallery, Bombay, in 2001,  and two group exhibitions in the same period. I completed a mural called Soul Sisters in ceramics for a hotel in Bombay, and used the same week during which I installed it to study the glazed Islamic tiles in the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay. Many other projects are emerging from this work.