Michael Cardew

Tanya Harrod, Michael Cardew, The Last Sane Man: Modern Pots, Colonialism and the Counterculture, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2012, illustrated fig.37 (a similar work).

There is a minor firing crack to the underside, but this excepting the work appears in excellent overall condition with no obvious crack or breaks. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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We are grateful to Dr Tanya Harrod for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

Leaving Britain in the early 1940s, Cardew travelled to Africa, first settling in Ghana and founding a pottery at Vume, in the Volta region, where he was attracted to the ‘native’ style.  In 1950 he was asked by the Nigerian authorities to establish a pottery training centre at Abuja in Nigeria, with the aim of improving local enterprise.  Here he spent the next fifteen years of his life, before his retirement in 1965, fostering local talent and introducing the world to potters such as Ladi Kwali, who travelled and exhibited extensively with Cardew in the 1960s in Britain and North America. 

Nigeria was to prove fruitful for the adventurous potter in terms of the materials it offered.  Here he created new clay bodies, with a further range of slips and glazes.  Cardew was also drawn to the local Gwari style of pots, impressed by their ‘lovely bold impeccable shapes w[ith] lots of rich austere decoration’ (Cardew, quoted in Tanya Harrod, Michael Cardew, The Last Sane Man, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2012, p.262).  Cardew worked to the model of traditional Gwari wares, the likes of which he had first seen during early tours of the Northern region of Nigeria in the early 1950s. Here he produced ‘casserole’ dishes, soon followed by oil and water jars with strap handles, and then later rare teapots, produced just prior to his return to Britain in the 1960s, and continued briefly after his return to the Wenford Bridge.  This impressive example, most probably produced after his return in the mid-1960s, combines Cardew’s early interest in traditional English folk pottery with a strong element of traditional Nigerian design, a culture that continued to fascinate the potter until his death in 1983.