Biography
James Tower (b. Sheerness, Isle of Sheppey, Kent, UK 1919 - d. 1988) exhibited with the South London Group before travelling the world and later studying at the Royal Academy, London from 1938 where he won the Gold Medal for painting in 1939. During the Second World War Tower enrolled for service and spent the war working in camouflage and mapping at the Polish Ministry of Information. He married fellow student Maureen McManus in 1944. After the war he returned to art, enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1946. Here he attended the classes of Staffordshire-born Dora Billington (1890-1968) and became fascinated with ceramics. After he graduated, he took further classes in pottery at the London Institute under the New-Zealander William Newland (1919-1998). In 1949 Tower was invited to set up a ceramics course at the progressive Bath Academy, Corsham where he remained until 1964. He became a celebrated teacher, setting up a pottery in the old stables at Beechfield, and taught all aspects of ceramics including technology, taking students on local excavations. He established a diverse artistic environment, teaching and working alongside artists such as Terry Frost, Kenneth Armitage, William Scott and Peter Lanyon. In 1963 Tower won a Leverhulme Research Award for terracotta research. In 1966 he became Head of Fine Art at Brighton College of Art, where he set up a sculpture course and remained there until 1986. Tower is known for his domestic pottery, terracotta sculpture and large glazed forms and has often used the sea as a motif in his work,
