Artist
Michael Cardew
Britain/Ghana/Nigeria
From Cornwall to Africa. Stoneware across continents.
Bernard Leach's first student spent most of his life in Africa, creating a pottery tradition from scratch.
Michael Cardew was one of Bernard Leach's first students at St Ives. But England felt constraining. In 1942, he moved to Ghana, then to the Abuja Pottery in Nigeria. Cardew wasn't interested in transplanting English traditions; he wanted to develop an African stoneware tradition using local materials. His book 'Pioneer Pottery' documents his experiments. Many contemporary African potters trace their training to Cardew's workshops.
What might you build in a place completely different from where you started?