Edmund de Waal’s work spur, from 2016, is featured in a major retrospective of the painter Rudolf Levy, co-organised by the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern and the Uffizi. The exhibition presents de Waal’s piece in juxtaposition with Levy’s last self-portrait. 

Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern

Edmund de Waal will curate an exhibition of acclaimed Danish ceramicist Axel Salto (1889–1961), considered one of the greatest masters of 20th Century ceramic art. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between Edmund de Waal, CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark, and Kunstsilo, Norway. It opens in Denmark in October 2023, at the Kunstsilo in September 2024, and at The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 2025.

This exhibition will bring together a significant number of Salto’s works alongside a major new installation by de Waal reflecting on Salto’s enduring influence. On this, de Waal notes:

‘Axel Salto is one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. He created a unique body of ceramic work that continues to fascinate me. His sculptures seem to be on the point of change: glazes are caught in flux. Vases swell as if to burst. He cared about the ways that patterns change course, shift energies, how an animal becomes a person, a man metamorphoses into a stag. Ovid ran powerfully through his life. That moment of change, transformation, is the moment when poetry occurs.’

Edmund de Waal’s to begin again, 2015, and Ai Weiwei’s Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds), 2009, will be included in an exhibition on contemporary ceramics at Des Moines Art Center, Iowa. 

Edmund de Waal will be in conversation with Dorothy Cross, Manchán Magal, and Phillipe Sands at this year's Borris House Festival of Writing and Ideas. 2023 marks the eleventh edition of the festival, whose aspiration is to exchange ideas captured in writing of all kinds. Speakers include celebrated historians, activists, musicians, journalists, environmentalists and literary minds, to help navigate uncertain times in an era of misinformation. 

Festival of Writings and Ideas

Edmund de Waal and Norman McBeath will present their book Perdendosi at the Fitzwilliam Museum, as part of the Cambridge Literary Festival. Referring to the musical term for gradually fading away at the end of a piece, Perdendosi presents a study of leaves at the stage of their transformation when they have lost all colour. Encompassing extraordinary photographs taken by McBeath alongside de Waal’s text Twelve Leaves, the collaborative book provides a heightened awareness and increased sensitivity towards the natural world, offering a fresh perspective on the familiar.

The Fitzwilliam Museum

Edmund de Waal's Atmosphere, 2014, will be included in Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art. The exhibition presents recent work by 23 international artists, ranging from small abstract objects to large-scale installations. By probing the relationship between art and craft, these artists highlight the diverse possibilities of the ceramic medium. De Waal's Atmosphere, an installation consisting of nearly 300 porcelain vessels contained in 9 suspended plexiglass vitrines, is a noteworthy example.

Hayward Gallery

Edmund de Waal’s works are presented in the exhibition The Feuerle Collection Silk Room, on view at the Feuerle Collection in Berlin from 17 September 2022 until Easter 2023.

Curated by the collection’s founder, collector Désiré Feuerle, this exhibition will focus on a selection of recent works by Edmund de Waal, juxtaposed with unseen pieces from the collection.

The idea behind this exhibition is to juxtapose the poetic content of Edmund de Waal’s work and the timeless character of extraordinary Asian achievements from the 6th and 16th century. De Waal is a contemporary artist, but his soul I see in Rembrandt, in the beauty of Italian Renaissance painters, and in historic philosophy. De Waal is a storyteller, who transports you to dark grounds, but also into the beauty of light. For that reason, de Waal’s waves can be found both in ancient Asian art, and in the great achievements of European masters of Wunderkammern, as if these were seen through the eye of a Morandi.  de Waal creates magic imaginary boxes which contain beauty in the eyes of the spectator. Most people would see him linked to porcelain, but I think his creations using porcelain go much further and beyond the feeling porcelain creates in our eyes.

– Désiré Feuerle

Feuerle Collection

We congratulate Edmund de Waal on being appointed a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his outstanding services to the art as a potter and writer.

Edmund de Waal's newest book, Letters to Camondo, has been published in France, UK and USA.

Count Moïse de Camondo lived a few doors away from Edmund de Waal's forebears, the Ephrussi, first encountered in his bestselling memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes. Like the Ephrussi, the Camondos were part of belle époque high society. They were also targets of anti-semitism.

Camondo created a spectacular house and filled it with the greatest private collection of French eighteenth-century art for his son to inherit. But when Nissim was killed in the First World War, it became a memorial and, on the Count's death, was bequeathed to France.

The Musée Nissim de Camondo has remained unchanged since 1936. Edmund de Waal has explored the lavish rooms, exquisite objects and detailed archives. In a haunting series of letters, he writes to the Count, and gets to know the boy who journeyed from Constantinople and became a model French citizen, before all that was gained was torn away.

Order a copy here.

The British Museum has published a catalogue on Edmund de Waal's work, centring around his "library of exile", currently shown at the museum.

"This beautifully produced book reflects upon the themes raised by de Waal’s thought-provoking work of art. A preface by Booker Prize-nominated author Elif Shakef considers the importance of literature and its capacity to transcend language and borders. The introduction from British Museum Director, Hartwig Fischer, positions the artwork within the wider context of the Museum’s collection, highlighting the dialogue between objects through time, from ancient history to the contemporary. Finally, de Waal concentrates on the work itself, its journey to the British Museum via Venice and Dresden, and its future role in the foundation of the new University of Mosul Library. 'Library of exile' is a contemplative read which celebrates language and the opportunity for dialogues with the displaced."

British Museum