Dish

This thrown slipware dish with sgraffito decoration references the design and glaze of traditional Devonshire pottery. This dish was made at the Winchcombe Pottery in Gloucestershire, opened by Michael Cardew in 1926, on the derelict site of the Greet Pottery that had closed in 1915. Cardew aimed to revive the English Country Pottery tradition which was in decline, due to the impact of industrialisation and factory production of ceramics.

Cardew was Bernard Leach’s first apprentice. His vision for studio pottery drew on the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement and he sought to create reasonably priced utilitarian ceramics for everyday use. In 1942 Cardew left England to teach pottery in Ghana, and later in 1952 he established the Pottery Training Centre at Abuja, Nigeria. [1]

In 1958 an exhibition at the Berkeley Galleries in London displayed work made by Cardew and Abuja potters. It included a dish made by Cardew, now in the V&A Museum collection, which features the same sgraffito design as seen here. [2]

Sim Panaser, June 2020

[1] Tanya Harrod, The Crafts in Britain in the 20th Century, (London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 185-192.

[2] http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O19216/dish-cardew-michael/ [accessed 5 June 2020].