James Tower

James Tower, aged 17, travelled to and worked in Australia. In 1938, he went to Royal Academy Schools to study painting, winning the Gold Metal in 1939.

A childhood accident blinded Tower in one eye and he spent the war working in camouflage, and in mapping at the Polish Ministry of Information.

He enrolled at the Slade in 1945 and in 1948 trained as a teacher at the London Institute of Education, which included ceramics courses taught by William Newland and Dora Billington.

In 1949 Clifford Ellis invited Tower to teach ceramics at the Bath Academy of Art, which had recently been established at Corsham Court to train artists as teachers. Tower set up a pottery in the old stables of Beechfield House.

During his life he had spent roughly three separate decades on painting, ceramics and sculpture. In 1976, he fused the three disciplines to create flattened vase forms and low horizontal chargers, shallow bowls and fish shapes.

Gimpel Fils, the London fine art gallery held its first solo exhibitions of Tower’s work in 1951. He continued to show with them throughout his life.