peter Layton
peter Layton
Artist, pioneer, mentor, Peter Layton is one of the founding fathers of British studio glass. He discovered the art from while teaching ceramics in the US in the mid 1960s, and has played a major part in elevating glass from an industrial medium to a highly collectable art form. Most importantly, he gave it a home in the UK.
The London Glassblowing studio has nurtured and produced some of the world's leading glass artists and continues to do so to this day. This is thanks to an open door policy extending to artists, collectors and the curious public who wander into the Bermondsey Street gallery and studio. Here they will find the energetic octogenarian in jeans and trainers bouncing between his family of resident artists, advising, collaborating and teaching, while producing his own unmistakable work.
Peter started with a small glass studio in the Highlands of Scotland while relying on pottery to ensure a living. However, the big city called, as did glass - it needed more dedicated champions. In 1976 he opened the London Glassblowing Workshop in an old towage works on the Thames at Rotherhithe. Here he used to dangle his feet over the flood wall and take inspiration from the flowing river.
Glassblowing was (and increasingly is) an expensive business, new equipment, materials and energy bills required working with other artists. He was joined by Charles Ramsay, drawing in names such as Norman Stuart Clarke and Siddy Langley. This created not just financial returns but a collaborative space for the exchange of ideas, the incubation of artists, and the development of new techniques. This ethos has endured through two relocations along London's Southbank to the workshop's current premises on Bermondsey Street.
Peter has always taken inspiration from his environment, natural or manmade: a stone wall on a snowy day, the London skyline, or works by great painters. From a mere detail, a flash of a Klimt orange or a slick of oil on the Thames, he creates painterly works with a masterly use of colour. Throughout his career, he has been courted by major art institutions, commercial buyers and private collectors. His work is held in various museums in the UK, Europe and America, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.