This book is a study of the work of the Irish artist John ffrench, whose main focus was on ceramics but who was also a painter, silk-screen printer, batik maker, collagist and decorator of furniture. His use of bright colour was the principal feature of his work in all media, and two of his early ceramic exhibitions in Dublin (in 1952 and 1960) sold out as soon as they opened.

This book traces ffrench's career in its entirety for the first time. It is intended to show the richness of his work, informed by the complexity of his family background; his mother was Italian, with Christian and Muslim ancestors, and his father was from the Catholic gentry of Co Galway in the west of Ireland. This book is based mainly on a large amount of primary material and original research, including interviews with ffrench himself, his family. colleagues, friends and contemporaries.