David Pye OBE (1914-1993) was an architect, industrial designer and craftsman. For many years he was also Professor of Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art, London. He is the author of The Nature and Art of Workmanship, Ships and The Nature and Aesthetics of Design. Ezra Shales is Professor in the History of Art department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA. He teaches craft and design history and is the author of The Shape of Craft (2017) and Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era (2010). He has also contributed chapters to publications such as Craft Economies (Bloomsbury, 2018) and The Ceramics Reader (Bloomsbury, 2017). He has written widely on contemporary artists and modernist ceramicists, and his work has appeared in exhibition catalogues and journals such as Journal of Design History and Journal of Modern Craft.
