Jim Partridge & Liz Walmsley
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First working together on a footbridge in North Wales in the 1980s, Jim Partridge and Liz Walmsley’s collaboration is one of the most significant in contemporary craft and design. Jim trained at the John Makepeace School for Craftsmen in wood between 1977 and 1979 before establishing a career in woodturning. After completing a degree in education, Liz worked in a pottery studio from 1973 to 1977. Their partnership continues to be internationally regarded and immensely versatile, ranging from domestic objects, installations embedded within the landscape, monumental furniture and site-specific interior commissions. Significant projects include an altar for Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, 2000, outdoor furniture for the re-designed Ruthin Crafts Centre, Wales, 2008, and the large Ridgeons seat in CB1, Cambridge. Their work has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Furniture prize twice. In 2019 Walmsley and Partridge were selected as finalists for the Loewe Craft Prize. Their pieces can be found in numerous public collections including the V&A, London, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Kyoto Museum of Modern Art, and the Manchester Art Gallery. In 2023 they were both awarded MBEs for services to design.
Partridge and Walmsley are renowned for their work with Oak typically sourced from felled trees in their surrounding locality of Shropshire. Prioritising clear lines and solid forms, their furniture preserves the strength and irregularities inherent to wood. Their surfaces are often scorched, transformed by fire, then polished to a shining black. Land art’s myriad lineages is undeniable in their practice. Alongside public seats and balconies, the designers have created numerous bridges. These larger forms highlight the ambition to their approach as well as their ongoing use of curved or tapering wood to generate sweeping, restrained forms. Across their diverse design work, Walmsley and Partridge are committed to staying with the complexity of functionality and form.
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