Catherine Yarrow

Catherine Yarrow lived and worked in Paris in its most exciting artistic days alongside artists such as Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder, Jean Arp, Brassai, Man Ray and Leonora Carrington. Her work has been largely and undeservedly neglected until a recent resurgence of interest.

Born into a wealthy family in Harpenden, Yarrow was sent away to boarding school following her father’s death and mother’s depression. Yarrow admitted to being a “terror” in this environment and – after a brief spell at RADA – moved to Paris to escape the stifling British society. Here she experimented with surrealism, studied at the legendary Atelier 17 and apprenticed with master potter Jose Llorens Artigas. Escaping the war with lover Michel Lukacs, Yarrow lived in New York in a fractious but stimulating artistic community, experimenting with leather-work, fine arts and ceramics! Her return to London in 1948 was challenging although her work was gaining recognition and exhibition space in the Hanover gallery (June 1950), ICA (1952) and Marjorie Parr Gallery (1960s). In the 1960s, money ran short and Yarrow sold her large house, moving to St John’s Wood where she built a ‘primitive’ oil-fired kiln in which she continued to fire her distinctive stoneware until illness struck in 1988.

Catherine produced artworks in many media across fifty years amid constantly changing politics, contemporaries and motivations. In Paris and New York she worked alongside significant Surrealists, Dadists and art collectors, and encountered Jungian psychology from Dr Jung himself. Later, her London home was a bohemian sanctuary for some of the most promising ceramicists of the late 20th century.