THE EXHIBITION 'Clay and Fire: Ceramic Art in Jamaica' is devoted to the medium of clay, and dedicated to Jamaica's Master Potter, Cecil Baugh, who died on June 28.
Opened on July 31, the exhibition marks the second in the clay genre to be staged by the National Gallery. The first was a retrospective of Cecil Baugh in 1981.
Clay and Fire surveys the outpouring of ceramic art in Jamaica and especially after Cecil Baugh returned to Jamaica from England in 1950, where he had been immersed in the teachings of Bernard Leach, the seminal British Potter, who had been instrumental in the revival of the studio pottery movement, as well as bringing ceramic traditions of the East to the West.
HISTORICAL COMPONENT
The historical component of Clay and Fire, which is a collaboration of the Museum of History and Ethnography (Institute of Jamaica) and the National Gallery sets the tone of the exhibition, as it lays out the potting foundation in clay artefacts of our indigenous Taino potters, and continues to chart the tradition by taking the viewer through the European (including the Spanish) to the Afro-Jamaican potting traditions. The work of the late MaLou (Louisa Jones), Jamaica's Afro-Jamaican potter, is featured in this section of the exhibition, as is the work of the late William Derval Aiken. Also featured are early industrial potting institutions in Jamaica such as: Island Worcester Porcelain and Things Jamaican. The young Baugh, before his apprenticeship at the Leach, St. Ives Potteries, in Britain, produced works that are entirely of the Afro-Jamaican tradition and in our special tribute to Baugh, we have included samples of that phase of his work.
NOTABLE FEATURE
A notable feature of the exhibition is the work of major students of Baugh, including Madge Spencer-Rivers, Norma Rodney Harrack and Gene Pearson. The Leach/Baugh legacy in Jamaica is seen in this exhibition in relation to the Jamaican master, while there are those who have developed independently of what we now define the Leach/Baugh tradition: ceramists like Two Todds, Jag Mehta, David Pinto and Marguerite Stanigar. Included are major sculptors like Edna Manley, Christopher Gonzalez, Fitz Harrack and Laura Facey, who are not normally associated with the convention, but who have turned to clay to express some of their most personal statements, they are grouped as independents.
The exhibition has been conceived and curated by a curatorial team composed of chief curator of the National Gallery of Jamaica, David Boxer, Norma Rodney Harrack (one of Baugh's most distinguished students, who joined the National Gallery's staff as consultant curator, to spearhead the project), David Pinto, another prominent ceramist, who developed independently of the Baugh tradition, Dr. the Hon. Oswald Harding, a devoted collector of ceramic art and Wayne Modest, custodian of the Institute of Jamaica's historical collections. Additionally, this exhibition would not have been made a reality without the efforts of the staff of the Gallery.
A full colour catalogue, designed and produced in-house, is now available for sale in the Gallery's Gift Shop at a cost of J$1,300.00.
Clay and Fire: Ceramic Art in Jamaica, which continues at the National Gallery until November 5 is a 'must-see' for everyone.
Norma Rodney Harrack Spiked Form 1998
