A Sheffield-born artist’s ceramics are being displayed at the city’s Millennium Gallery for only the second time.

The centrepiece of the display of John Hoyland’s work is his fondly-named Mad Little Hybrids which incorporates an abstract range of ceramic sculptures made by him in the 1990s.

The highly regarded ‘Thupelo Memory,1994’, also takes centre stage alongside works by other artists, including David Harrison, Caroline Achaintre and Hew Locke.

With a career spanning 50 years, Hoyland has become increasingly influential in the art world, his work specialising in abstract geometric forms exhibited in galleries ranging from the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1999 and most recently The last Paintings, 2021, at the Millennium Gallery which brought together some of his last paintings before his death.

The exhibition also represents a shift in Hoyland’s style. Aided by fellow artist David Harrison, Hoyland took a different approach in his creation of his Mad Little Hybrids.

Hoyland previously said: “I had not touched three-dimensional ceramics since I was seven years old until I began this group of work at the Royal Academy of Art.

“After my initial optimism at the ‘idea’ of the project I began to realise that it was harder than it looked, but guided and encouraged by David Harrison we produced this group of work.

“What I really enjoyed was the freedom to ‘try anything’, the unexpected results with some of the colour, and also to indulge in the possibility of introducing irony and even humour to these Mad Little Hybrids.”

The exhibition was curated by Olivia Bax, Sam Cornish and Wiz Patterson Kelly of the John Hoyland Estate, after the work was in private collections.

Lead curator Ms Bax was surprised the work had stayed under the radar, saying: “Despite being 30 years old, they looked as if they had just been made.

“I am delighted that we can now see them in dialogue with other sculptors championing colourful, odd, immediate and funny sculptural hybrids.”

Visitors of the gallery, Tobias and Kairen, said the work was ‘extremely striking and eye-catching, drawn to Hew Locke’s Kingdom of the Blind, which incorporates toy weapons, plastic flowers and beads and babies’ heads into three human figures.

The event will be open until Sunday May 18.