Julian Francis Stair (born 1955 in Bristol) is an English potter, academic and writer. He makes groups of work using a variety of materials, from fine glazed porcelain to coarse engineering brick clays. His work ranges in scale from hand-sized cups and teapots to monumental jars at over 6 feet tall and weighing half a ton. Stair has exhibited internationally over the last 30 years and has work in thirty public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, British Museum, American Museum of Art & Design, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Boymans Museum, Netherlands, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan, Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Germany and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK. In 2004 he was awarded the European Achievement Award by the World Crafts Council for the project Extended Inhumation, and received a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship to research the making of monumental ceramics at Wienerberger's brick factory in Sedgley. In 2008 the Art Fund purchased Monumental Jar V for Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima) and in 2014 purchased "Reliquary for a Common Man" for the Crafts Council. In 2017 Stair was the recipient of the bavarois State Prize in recognition of outstanding contribution to contemporary art and design. Recent projects include the solo exhibitions: "Quotidian", the re-imagining of the historic 'Grand Service at Corvi-Mora Gallery, London and Quietus: The Vessel, Death and the Human Body which was commissioned by mima and supported by Arts Council England. This exhibition addressed the containment of the human body in death and featured a series of funerary works, from cinerary jars to life-size sarcophagi. Education and work Stair studied ceramics at Camberwell School of Art from 1974–1978, and at the Royal College of Art from 1978–1981. He completed a PhD in Critical Writing on English Studio Pottery: 1910–1940 at the Royal College of Art in 2002. He was a trustee of the Crafts Council and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He lives and works in South London. Stair was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to ceramics. Academic career Stair was a Principle Research Fellow at the University of Westminster 2012-14. He was Senior Lecturer at the University of Roehampton, London, (1987–1998); Fellow in Craft & Criticism at Northumbria University, (1998–1999); Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art, (2004); and Senior Research Fellow at University of Arts, London,