Edmund de Waal’s (b. 1964) career spans both visual and literary disciplines. Both his artistic and written practice have broken new ground through their critical engagement with the history and potential of ceramics, as well as with architecture, music, dance and poetry. De Waal continually investigates themes of diaspora, memorial, materiality and the colour white with his artworks.
Selected recent museum shows include we live here, forever taking leave at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire (2022); This Living Hand: Edmund de Waal presents Henry Moore at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens in Perry Green (2021); Lettres à Camondo at Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris (2021), The Hare with Amber Eyes at the Jewish Museum, New York (2021); and tact at the New Art Centre (2020).
De Waal was made an OBE in 2011, and in 2021 was made a CBE for his Services to the Arts. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2021. De Waal was on the Advisory Committee for the Royal Mint and was a Trustee of the V&A, 2011 – 2019. He was a Trustee of the Gilbert Trust, 2011 – 2024, and a member of the Young V&A Committee, 2020 – 2023. In 2015 he was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction by Yale University. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of the Arts London, Nottingham, Sheffield, York and Canterbury Christ Church universities and is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
