Goldmark 37, 2025

Tradition is a word we are very familiar with here at the gallery: between the potters we represent and the fine handmade prints we champion, craft, process and a reverence for materials are all part of our daily vocabulary. There is a broad theme of traditions at play in this latest magazine, particularly in Japan: Koichiro Isezaki, a potter in Bizen, striving to find his place with the weight of over 500 years of ceramics excellence on his shoulders; Shirley Booth, expert on Japanese cuisine, demystifying its unique flavours and formalities; even a highlight on the traditional custom of packing treasured items in tomobako boxes. The best traditions, of course, adapt and persevere with the changing times while retaining their essential spirit – and so I hope has this magazine. Mike Goldmark

CONTRIBUTORS

Richard Hudson is a retired teacher who has been collecting 20th century British art for the past 25 years. He is fascinated by the historical context in which art is produced, the interactions between artists and, in particular, the gradual move towards abstraction in the middle years of the century. His most recent personal research has centred on the extraordinary career of Frank Budgen and his friendships with the poets James Joyce and Claude McKay.

Dr Kerry Harker is a curator and researcher. A former Curator of Exhibitions at Harewood House from 2008 to 2011 and interim Director at The Art House in Wakefield from 2015 to 2016, she is currently Bridget Riley Art Foundation Fellow at the University of Leeds, working with the archive of artist, writer and educator Maurice de Sausmarez. In the 1990s she trained in the University’s School of Fine Art, which de Sausmarez was instrumental in shaping as its inaugural Head of Department in the 1950s.

Shirley Booth is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and broadcaster, with a special interest in Japan, where she lived for several years. Author of Food of Japan, she is a Member of the Guild of Food Writers and was the first UK recipient of the Japanese Agriculture Minister’s Award for overseas promotion of Japanese food. In 2008 she set up the British Sake Association to further understanding of sake and its role in traditional Japanese culture: www.britishsakeassociation.org.

Malcolm Yorke is a celebrated writer on art and the author of biographies of Eric Gill, Keith Vaughan, Matthew Smith, Edward Bawden, and Mervyn Peake. His The Spirit of Place: Nine Neo-Romantic Artists and Their Times won the Yorkshire Post Art Book of the Year award. Yorke’s Against the Grain: The Life and Art of Rigby Graham was published by Goldmark in 2015. He also paints, sculpts and writes children’s books.