Jennifer Lee’s work reflects a lifelong practice of innovation with material and form. Born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1956, she studied ceramics and tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art, followed by a travelling scholarship to the USA. Her research on prehistoric Southwest Native American ceramics and time spent with radical West Coast potters profoundly influenced her. She also completed a master’s degree in ceramics at the Royal College of Art.

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Jennifer Lee’s hand-built, unglazed pots are distinguished by their condensed language of form and subtle surface treatment and colour, which is integrated into the clay body using mineral oxides. They suggest ancient vessels while having a presence that is of our time and place. Beginning with a ‘pinch pot’ base, built upon by coiling lengths of clay, the roots of Lee’s process lie in the earliest forms of working with clay. In addition to research trips to India, Egypt and Australia, Lee has regularly worked in Japan since 2014.

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Jennifer Lee has exhibited and her work is represented in major museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum; the British Museum and the V&A Museum, London, as well as museums in South Korea and Japan. She won the Loewe Craft Prize in 2018 and was awarded an OBE for services to ceramics in 2021.