Gordon Baldwin is one of the major figures of late 20th-century ceramics. He has also been an influential teacher, both at Eton College, where he taught pottery and sculpture, and as a lecturer at Camberwell and the Central School of Art (both in London). His early works were a pure exploration of abstract sculptural form, and would typically be finished with shiny dark glazes. From the 1970s, however, Baldwin has shown an increasing interest in ceramic vessel forms, and the interplay between shape and painted surface.