From 2010 to 2021, Andrew Brewerton was Principal at Plymouth College of Art. During his tenure as Principal at Plymouth College of Art, Andrew was Vice Chair of GuildHE, one of two formal representative bodies for UK Higher Education, and of UKADIA, and was a member of the UK Advisory Council of the Creative Industries Federation, the Cultural Learning Alliance Steering Group, and the Crafts Council’s Advisory Group.

A former Principal of Dartington College of Arts and Dean of Art & Design at the University of Wolverhampton, Andrew is an English graduate of Cambridge University and from 1984 worked for a decade in glass crystal manufacturing, latterly as head of design and development at Dartington Crystal. He has held a number of academic and public appointments: at the Università dell’Aquila, Italy; with Professorships at the Universities of Wolverhampton and Plymouth; as a Council member of Arts Council England; and as Vice-Chair of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Group on Higher Education (PMI2).

His international work has involved the catalytic development of academic glass programs at Shanghai University and Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria), as well as public art projects in China and the UK. A book-length Chinese monograph on his contribution to Art & Design education in China was published in Shanghai in April 2011.

He has given guest lectures and seminars internationally – recently at Art in Action, Révélations at Grand Palais, Paris; Loheland Stiftung, Germany; Ateliers d’Art de France, Assises 2016; Cheongju International Craft Biennale, South Korea; and Beijing Design Week. Andrew is the author of more than sixty journal and catalogue essays and books on glass and contemporary art, including extended essays on artists including Antoine Leperlier, Colin Reid and Keith Cummings, the Chinese performance artist He Yunchang and the painter Xue Guangchen. Glass Tantra, his book on Buddhism and the glass art of Yang Hui-shan, was published in Taipei (2012) and Shanghai (2013).

Andrew’s poetry publications include Via (2010); Raag Leaves for Paresh Chakraborty (2008); Cade l’uliva (2003) and Sirius (1995), and his work is cited in ‘Poetry after 1970’ in The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2004). An Italian edition of his poetry is due from Edizioni Kolibris (Ferrara) in 2019.