‘Gordon Baldwin: Objects for a Landscape’ was a major retrospective exhibition of the work of Gordon Baldwin designed by Smith and Tatjana Marsden. Initiated by York Museums Trust, the exhibition opened at York Art Gallery in February 2012 and toured to Gallery Oldham (2012); The National Centre for Craft and Design, Lincolnshire (2012–13); Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (2013); and Ruthin Craft Centre (2013). During the first two months at York, 37,700 people saw the exhibition.
Gordon Baldwin OBE (born 1932) is ‘one of the world’s most distinguished ceramic artists, a sculpture potter who has helped to redefine the expressive language of clay over the last fifty years’ (Whiting 2012). Internationally renowned as the UK’s most distinguished living sculptural potter, he has been influential both as an artist and teacher, and is regarded as ‘one of the last true modernists to work in clay’, moving ceramics onto a sculptural platform, away from its traditional and functional concerns (Whiting 2012).
Smith’s research for the project included a series of in-depth interviews conducted with Baldwin in his studio. These explored how Baldwin conceived of his work and anticipated the way individual pieces would be presented. Smith also undertook documentary research of previous large-scale exhibitions of Baldwin’s work to develop an understanding of the motivations and aims behind previous display choices.
The resulting touring exhibition of 147 individual works was the largest assemblage of Baldwin’s work ever undertaken. The unprecedented number of artworks brought together for the show gave Smith the opportunity to construct a comprehensive thematic interpretation of Baldwin’s work that foregrounded his working processes and development as an artist.
Smith also gave a paper about his curation of the show, ‘Designing the landscape’, at a symposium about Baldwin and sculptural ceramics hosted by the University of York (2012).