Joan Crossley-Holland, who ran the Oxford Gallery in High Street from 1968 to 1986, has died aged 92.

Joan Crossley-Holland

A potter by training, she was a designer at Doulton's Lambeth studio in London, before marrying and bringing up two children.

In 1966 she became director of the Bear Lane Gallery in Oxford, sponsored by the Arts Council. But she clashed with the trustees about whether crafts such as pottery could be considered art.

The directors' response to her suggestion of a ceramics exhibition was to say: "Not casseroles!"

She left to set up her own gallery nearby in High Street, where her first exhibition was opened by Roy Strong, then director of the National Portrait Gallery.

During the 18 years she ran the gallery, it mounted 187 exhibitions involving more than 2,000 artists, showing jewellery, engraving, pottery, glass, tapestry, prints, and even brass ships' bells.

In 1983 she was awarded an MBE -- the first independent gallery owner to be honoured.

She also mounted outdoor exhibitions of sculpture in partnership with Annely Juda. There were also garden exhibitions in 1984 and 1985 in the gardens of High Walls in Headington.

She was one of the first to show furniture by John Makepeace, pottery by Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, jewellery by Wendy Ramshaw and weaving by Peter Collingwood.

When Mrs Crossley- Holland retired Victor Margie, director of the Crafts Council, called her a "crusader and missionary".

He paid tribute to the "dogged persistence of a remarkable woman who dedicated her working life to a better understanding of the visual arts".

Potter Alan Caiger-Smith praised her "verve and conviction" and "valiant perseverance and generous vision".

She is survived by her two children.