Colin Pearson was one of the finest potters in Britain. For more than 50 years he produced a quite remarkable body of work. His pots have earned him an international reputation as one of the most important ceramic artists of the 20th century and his “winged” vessels are an icon of modern studio ceramics.

Colin James Pearson was born in 1923, in the London suburb of Friern Barnet. His father was a civil servant and Pearson had a fairly normal and quite free childhood in Ashford, west of London. He served in the radar department of the RAF during the war. His father wanted him to be a banker but he had become interested in drawing through the Forces educational service and wanted to go to art school.

Pearson studied painting at Goldsmiths College in London for five years. There he met Leslie Thomas who became his wife in 1954 and together they had three children.

While doing teacher training, in his final year he became interested in pottery and a friend suggested he visit Ray Finch at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire. Pearson was bowled over by the work there. He made the decision to become a potter and was taken on despite his lack of experience. The Winchcombe Pottery had belonged to Michael Cardew, one of the greatest of all potters, and Finch had taken it over after years as Cardew's assistant. Finch was one of the finest craftsmen in the country and the practical training that Pearson received proved invaluable throughout his career.

In 1954 Pearson began a year of working for the Royal Doulton Pottery in Lambeth and then was hired by David Leach as his assistant in setting up the Aylesford Pottery, at Maidstone, Kent. Leach left after a short time and Pearson directed the pottery for five years, teaching the Carmelite friars the art of production pottery and overseeing the transition from slipware to stoneware. For many years afterwards the friars at Aylesford continued to make very fine work.

In 1961 Pearson set up his own Quay Pottery in Aylesford village, initially with the assistance of the American potter, Byron Temple. For most of the 1960s he made primarily domestic stoneware; robust functional pots, some with an influence of medieval English pottery, and many with the oriental influence so prevalent at that time. In about 1970 he began to concentrate more and more on individual pieces and small appendages started appearing on the shoulders of his pots. The familiar “wing forms” with which Pearson is so associated made their first appearance in his 1971 exhibition at the British Crafts Centre.

Pearson's work of the early 1970s is perhaps the best he did. Black basalt stoneware, porcelain with celadon glazes, pots with flowing ash glazes — all were fresh and powerful. He was a fine thrower and his forms had enormous energy and a flowing quality rarely seen in Western ceramics. The “wings” or appendages were an important and distinctive aspect of Pearson's work as they vastly altered his thrown cylinder shapes. The decorative nature of these often elaborate wings, together with jagged, torn rims, were used in contrast to the plain surface of the rest of the pot. While it is the wings that are most remembered it was the transformation of the pot's rim that was most remarkable. These thin, brittle and apparently torn edges make a fragile contrast to the powerful forms and are a reminder of the eroded edges of the Bronze Age relics that Pearson so admired.

While Pearson has been hugely respected in Britain, there is a certain sense that, in a country rich in significant potters, he has been taken a little for granted. There have been no public awards, no retrospectives and no books on his work. There has even been the occasional criticism of his pots being too gimmicky. This has not been the case with his reputation abroad, where he has consistently been treated as one of the world's leading ceramic artists.

Early support came from Henry Rothschild and Paul Koster in Munich, one of Europe's foremost ceramic dealers, and his last exhibition in 2003 was with another leading German dealer, Marianne Heller. In between there have been countless magazine articles and exhibitions all round the world, and major international awards, starting with the grand prize at the Faenza International in 1975. It was largely the purchases of foreign collectors that enabled Pearson to make the leap from a highly respected domestic craftsman to an important artist.

Pearson has also been extremely influential as a teacher. He was a part-time lecturer at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, 1958-92, Harrow College of Art and Design, 1964-77, and Medway College of Art and Design, 1978-91.

At Harrow his throwing and workshop skills were of immense value and would be hard to overemphasise the importance of the Harrow course. In the 1960s and 1970s there was an increasing shift from thrown utilitarian vessels to handbuilt sculptural “art pots”. Harrow provided a rigorous, practical two-year programme that reinstated the values of handmade functional pottery. Its students became the dominant force in a new wave of domestic potters and many cited Pearson as an important influence.

His influence at Camberwell was possibly even stronger. The late 1970s and early 1980s were a golden period at Camberwell, from where more than a dozen of Britain's most exciting and talented young potters emerged. Pearson was a key figure in the teaching staff and a number of very fine potters — most notably Dan Kelly and Colin Gorry — could accurately be called Pearson protégés. While few young potters have the audacity to copy Pearson's iconic wings, robust thrown cylinders with ragged, torn rims have become ubiquitous enough for some critics to speak of a “Pearson School”.

Pearson had minor difficulties with his health from the early 1980s. These became very much worse in the early 1990s and eventually a particularly virulent form of Parkinson's disease was diagnosed. By the end of the century he was becoming largely confined to a wheelchair and having severe vision problems. Despite this he carried on working until 2003, using assistants to carry out the tasks he was physically incapable of. Perhaps surprisingly there was no diminishment in the quality of the work produced. Some of his finest pots were made towards the end of his career.

There were considerable changes to Pearson's techniques over the years; from reduction firing in a gas kiln to oxidation in an electric one and from dip glazing to spraying. His forms became more complex and often involved assembling thrown and slabbed sections. He introduced distinctive and fluid handled jugs and increasingly added colourful glazes to the blacks, greys and bronzes more frequently used in the 1980s.

The very individual nature of Pearson's pots meant that he had always been somewhat apart from the mainstream of British ceramics. There is little doubt, however, that he was one of the most successful ceramic artists at combining the very different natures of the oriental-inspired vessel and the sculptural pot. His pots are instilled with the warmth, generosity and humour that were characteristic of Pearson's own nature and have left an indelible mark on the world of contemporary ceramics.

He is survived by his wife, Leslie, and by two sons and a daughter.

Colin Pearson, potter, was born on September 14, 1923. He died on December 3, 2007, aged 84