Limited Edition Lithograph 1 by Eric James Mellon (1925-2014)

‘Persephone with Ascalaphus and a Musician’ by Eric James Mellon (1925-2014), a limited edition lithograph, edition no. 7/15 dated 1978, pencil signed lower right, 29 x 19cm, framed and glazed.

Eric James Mellon, who has died aged 88, was a painter, printmaker and ceramicist who decorated bowls, plates and tiles with mythological scenes, mermaids, circus performers and entwined lovers. He carried out extensive research into ash glazes, which enabled him to draw and paint on ceramic, using an underglaze palette of oxides, and to fire to high temperatures without losing colour, brushwork and accuracy of line. The effects he achieved in ceramic were unique.

Mellon was a product of the skills-oriented training offered by British art schools until the early 1960s. The son of a cabinet-maker, he was born in Watford, Hertfordshire. He was a delicate child who decided to be an artist when he was eight, while watching an uncle draw. At 13 he attended Watford Technical and Art Institute to prepare for a career in the local printing industry. At weekends he would cycle down to Harrow School of Art for life drawing and pottery classes.

He was debarred by childhood illnesses from military service in the second world war. In 1944 he enrolled at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London to study book production and printmaking. The wood-engraver John Farleigh was a particular mentor and Mellon's early neo-romantic prints show Farleigh's influence.

Mellon had become a founder member of the Craftsmen Potters Association in 1958. He had more than 30 solo exhibitions, many of which concentrated on his ceramics. One of the most recent was a 2012 show at the Ariana Museum in Geneva, headquarters of the International Academy of Ceramics. Ceramics by Mellon are in many British public collections including Chichester's Pallant House Gallery, the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the York Museums Trust, as part of the William Ismay collection.