Vinodini Ebdon was born in Delhi, British India (now India) in 1919. After marrying a British Officer, she permanently moved to England in 1953. She studied ceramics at the Bath Academy of Art in 1962, and went on to show her work at various exhibitions showcasing South Asian artists in Britain during the 1980s.
Ceramicist Vinodini Ebdon was born to Samuel and Grace Jaimumari Joseph in Delhi, British India (now India) in 1919. Her formal education culminated in a degree from Delhi University, and after working in Hindu and Muslim establishments she took a commission in the Indian Army and was appointed psychologist to the Officer Selection Board. She married a British Officer colleague, Major A. V. Ebdon of the Madras Regiment, and they and their three children moved to England in 1947. After a brief return to India between 1949 and 1952, Ebdon became a permanent resident in England in 1953.
Ebdon took up pottery initially as a hobby, attending classes at Bath Academy of Art under Peter Wright in 1962. She began by making simple domestic ware, using slip and graffito methods to decorate items based largely on natural forms. Her works were shown in annual exhibitions at the Academy from 1964. It was in 1982, however, that Ebdon’s works became more widely seen. That year, she was interviewed on BBC2 for Gharbar, a weekly television programme for the Asian community, airing between 1977 and 1987. She was also interviewed for Here and Now, a weekly 25-minute long ethnic minority arts and culture television programme, produced by Central TV and broadcast to the Midlands throughout the 1980s. Simultaneously, Ebdon’s works featured in various shows in London. Between 1981 and 1982, her ceramics were shown at Indian Artists UK Gallery in Four Indian Women Artists, organised by Bhajan Hunjan and Chila Burman, and which included examples of their paintings and prints alongside wooden sculpture by Naomi Iny. Ebdon also featured alongside 16 other contemporary South-Asian-British artists in Between Two Cultures (1982), curated by future Horizon Gallery Artistic Director, Ibrahim Wagh, at the Barbican Arts Centre. The title was selected in order to draw attention to the immense challenges facing contemporary South Asian British artists in being recognised as an important part of British culture (VADS).
Throughout the 1980s, Ebdon began using complex techniques of incised work, using modelling and tooling-applied clay to produce finer detail. Such works were shown in the exhibition New Horizons at Royal Festival Hall, London in 1985. At this time, she was described as having been ‘Blessed with liberal-minded parents with wide ranging musical and artistic interests’, and that a ‘store of rich cultural influences’ had given her ‘a great feeling for the simplicity of natural things, and for their great diversity’ (New Horizons exhibition catalogue). The following year, Ebdon was included in Numaish: An Exhibition of Five Asian Womens Work at the People’s Gallery, London. Organised by Hunjan, Ebdon’s ceramics were shown alongside sculpture, stained glass, print and painting made by Hunjan, Iny, Dushka Ahmed and Nina Edge. In a review in Asian Times, Ebdon’s works were described as ‘functional as well as pleasing to look at’ (Ali, 1986; also see Correia, 2019).
Little is known about Ebdon's life and location since the 1980s. Her work is not currently represented in UK public collections.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Vinodini Ebdon]
Publications related to [Vinodini Ebdon] in the Ben Uri Library