BATH.- James Tower (1919-88) was born in Sheerness on the north Kent coast, with access to windswept beaches, the mudflats of the Thames and Medway, and a shoreline teeming with plant and animal life - an environment that left an indelible impression on the future artist.

After studying painting at the Royal Academy Schools from 1938-40, he continued at the Slade from 1945-8. Widely recognised as one of Britain's most important 20th-century studio potters, he was inspired initially by William Newland and Dora Billingdon to specialise in tin-glazed earthenware. Latterly his decorative rigour anticipated the innovations of Elizabeth Fritsch.

Tower was also a highly respected art school lecturer, first at the Bath Academy of Art (1949-66), where he set up the pottery studio and worked as one of the few full-time teachers, then later at Brighton Polytechnic (1966-86) where he was Head of Sculpture and worked alongside the young Antony Gormley.

As far as his own practice was concerned, it is often forgotten that for nearly two decades, between 1958 and 1977, Tower gave up decorated ceramics in favour of sculpture in a range of media. A highly sculptural understanding of form is, however, common to his work in both media, as evidenced by the fact that his decorated ceramics were always mouldmade rather than thrown on the wheel.

In an artist's statement Tower declared his intention of making ‘forms to convey a sense of wholeness, releasing inner tensions, serene and harmonious, a world where abounding energy is held in calm restraint. The objects which I strive to make are attempts at hymns to the beauty of the natural world.’

James Tower is represented in many public collections including Arts Council England, The Art Institute of Chicago, National Museum Wales, Sainsbury Centre for the Arts, Norwich, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. A monograph on the artist, The Ceramic Art of James Tower by Timothy Wilcox, was published by Lund Humphries in 2012.

To mark the centenary of Tower’s birth, the Victoria Art Gallery is working with the artist’s family and with independent curator Tim Wilcox to mount a multimedia show of Tower’s work comprising ceramics, sculptures, works of art on paper, oil paintings and archival material. The intention is to display Tower’s large sculptural ceramic forms in small groups on specially constructed plinths, without glass or Perspex in front, whilst the walls show a range of his work in two dimensions. Much of this material has not been previously been on public view.

Works by artists who influenced Tower and were in turn influenced by him arel also being featured, with ceramics by Picasso and Hodgkin’s portrait of the artist and his wife.