Carol McNicoll

Carol Margaret McNicoll (24 December 1943 – 3 March 2025) was an English studio potter whose work was mainly decorative slipcast ware, she is credited with helping to transform the British ceramics scene in the late 1970s.^[1]

Biography

McNicoll was born in Birmingham on 24 December 1943, and brought up in Solihull, Warwickshire (now West Midlands). She attended a foundation course at Solihull College of Technology^[2] and then studied fine art at Leeds Polytechnic from 1967 to 1970. In 1968 she made a film with three other students titled Musical which collaged and parodied existing musicals; the comedian Roy Hudd was invited to open the premiere.^[3] McNicoll was awarded a Princess of Wales Scholarship to attend Royal College of Art from 1970 to 1973,^[4] where she felt women were "marginalised" and "attention went to the men who were interested in industrial ceramics".^[5]

McNicoll worked as a wardrobe assistant at theatres in Birmingham and London in the early 1960s.^[6] In 1970 she designed costumes for Brian Eno of Roxy Music who was then her boyfriend.^[7][8] Her black cockerel feathered boa collar achieved an iconic status in the fledgling glamrock period.^[3] McNicoll supervised the design of the cover for Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets album with one of her teapot designs being featured on the sleeve cover.^[9] She also worked as a machinist for the fashion designer Zandra Rhodes,^[10] who in 1972 commissioned her to make a unique dinner set,^[11] consisting of pink coffee cups with hands for saucers.^[12]

McNicoll made sculptural functional ceramics and lectured widely including at Camberwell College of Arts from 1986 to 2000.^[13] In 2001 she was short-listed for the Jerwood Prize for Ceramics.^[14] Later work was constructed from slipcast and found objects such as toy soldiers, using commercial and self made transfer decoration.^[15]

McNicoll said of her work "I am entertained by making functional objects which are both richly patterned and comment on the strange world we have created for ourselves."^[16] She exhibited internationally and in 2003 City Gallery at Leicester, England presented a major retrospective of her work.^[17] Her work is in the V&A's modern collection.^[18]

McNicoll lived and worked in a converted piano factory in Kentish Town in London, designed by her friend the architect Piers Gough in exchange for a McNicoll tea set.^[19] She died on 3 March 2025, at the age of 81.^[20]

Exhibitions

Selected later exhibitions included:^[21]

• Well meaning cultural commodities, Barrett Marsden Gallery London 2008
• Taiwan biennale exhibition curated by Moyra Elliott, 2010
• Ceramics – Carol McNicoll, Ken Eastman, Alison Britton, Clara Scremini Gallery, Paris, 2010
• Ideal Home – Carol McNicoll, Jacqui Poncelet, Sam Scott, Marsden Woo Gallery London, 2011
• 5 Divas: Carol McNicoll, Jacqui Poncelet, Janice Tchalenko, Elizabeth Fritsch, Alison Britton, Helene Aziza Paris, 2012
• Pieces together: Carol McNicoll, Sam Scott, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf London, 2012