Julia Carter Preston

Julia Carter Preston, who has died aged 85, was a masterful potter in the best traditions of the Arts and Crafts Movement; her work is preserved in both private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Julia Carter Preston in her studio 

Plant forms and animals were among her principal inspirations; Persian ceramics were also an influence. In the mid-Eighties she began to use lustre, allowing for a more subtle colour effect . Characteristic for their intricate patterns, her designs were most often executed in what is known as sgraffito, a demanding and painstaking technique which involves scratching a design in clay through a coating of slip.

Complex as these designs were, Julia Carter Preston did no preliminary drawings before embarking on a new piece. “I often have no real idea what the finished piece will look like, and literally create it from scratch,” she once said.

Although noted for her fine decorative ware, she was equally at home with the functional, creating jugs, bowls, dinner services (she once made a 100-piece dinner service for a family in Lancashire), plates and teapots. She made commemorative plaques for occasions such as births, marriages and christenings, and also undertook commission for churches, such as tiles and stoups for Holy Water.

Julia Carter Preston worked from a studio in the old Bluecoat Chambers, off Church Street in Liverpool. Her artistic connections with the city were deep.

Her father, Edward Carter Preston, was head sculptor at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral from 1931 until he died, aged 80, in 1965, and was responsible for many of its carved figures — as a girl Julia modelled for some of them. He also designed medals — including the next-of-kin memorial plaque issued to relatives of servicemen who died in the Great War.

Her mother, Marie, a watercolourist and dressmaker, was the sister of the Liverpool sculptor Herbert Tyson Smith, who was responsible for the sculpted relief panels on the city’s Cenotaph in front of Liverpool’s St George’s Hall. With Lord Leverhulme, Julia’s father and uncle were co-founders of the Liverpool Bluecoat Society of Arts in 1927, where Julia would create her work.
The youngest of four daughters, Julia Althea Carter Preston was born on January 26 1926 and educated at Blackburne House School for Girls, Liverpool. The family home in the city was filled with antique furniture, paintings and pottery, including a collection of Chinese ceramics. As a child, she recalled, she spent much of her time “drawing, painting and fiddling about with bits of clay”.
For much of the Second World War, to escape the bombing, the family lived in a farmhouse outside the city, allowing Julia to develop a love of birds, plants and animals. Her early ambition was to be a sheep farmer, but after spending a year working on the land in Yorkshire she decided that her talents lay elsewhere.
In the early 1950s she entered the Liverpool College of Art, where she specialised in pottery.
On leaving she taught pottery at various colleges in Lancashire and at Liverpool College of Art, where she eventually became head of the ceramics department — a young John Lennon was among her students.
Examples of Julia Carter Preston’s work were presented to Princess Margaret and the Duchess of Kent. A piece was commissioned as a present for the Prince of Wales when he visited the restored St George’s Hall in 2007.
She was elected a Fellow of the Liverpool John Moores University in 2005. In 1999 she had a retrospective at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
A flamboyant and determined character, at social occasions Julia Carter Preston cut an elegant yet bohemian figure with her flaming red hair, set off by colourful velvets or brocades, her shoes decorated with silver buckles.
Her husband, Michael Pugh-Thomas, died in March 2011. There were no children.

Julia Carter Preston, born January 26 1926, died January 6 2012