POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Stoneware dinner set made by Les Blakebrough

Object No. 95/187/2

This part-setting is from one of the earliest significant commissions of studio pottery in Australia, commissioned by the Australian Council for the Arts in 1970. In 1989, selected items formed part of a touring retrospective exhibition of Les Blakebrough's work, and were shown at the Hyde Park Barracks venue of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences The pieces are representative of brown glazed stoneware pieces thrown by Blakebrough in the late 1960s / early 1970s. Les Blakebrough (b.1930) is acknowledged as one of Australia's foremost ceramic artists, producing work for over 50 years. He has been widely influential through his ceramics research and development and his teaching. He is acclaimed for his development of a new porcelain body, Southern Ice Porcelain. Blakebrough's work is represented in the public collections of the Australian National Gallery and all State Galleries, as well as many other public galleries nationally; and internationally in Vienna and in Faenza, Italy. In 1974 Blakebrough was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exhibition of Ceramic Art, Faenza. In 2013 he received an O.A.M. in the Queen's Birthday Honours. Blakebrough started work in 1957 as an apprentice to Ivan McMeekin at the Sturt workshops in NSW, after studying at East Sydney Technical College. Sturt pottery workshop was noted for teaching the 'Anglo-Japanese' stoneware aesthetic in the tradition of British potter Bernard Leach; and was an innovator in Australia in the development and use of local clay bodies. Blakebrough became Manager of Sturt Pottery from 1959, then Workshops Director from 1964, before leaving in 1972 to head the Ceramics department at the Tasmanian School of Art. He remained in Hobart until the end of 2010. At different times Blakebrough sought out and was receptive to various international influences: most notably while at Sturt by invited international potters including English potter John Chappell; then in 1963 in Japan by teacher and mentor Takeichi Kawai (in Kyoto) and others. Influences included new forms, and new techniques notably press-moulding. Much later in 1993 through a Churchill Fellowship he studied modern modeling and industrial techniques at the Arabia, Royal Copenhagen and Royal Worcester factories. Blakebrough is known for his individual pieces and for his Pottery production pieces. At Sturt he produced stoneware mugs, jugs, teapots, bowls and spheres in iron and other dark glazes, typical of the times. After his 1963 visit to Japan, he made a wider variety of forms including square bottles, round sided pilgrim bottles, press-moulded boxes and platters, using both stoneware and porcelain. From the 1960s his most distinctive forms were the sphere and the blossom jar, varying in dimensions from around 10.5cm to over 50cm. They combine classical form and organic decorative motifs, showing both English and Japanese influences. Triassic sandstone glazes gave way in the mid 1980s to unglazed porcelain sometimes decorated with cobalt blue or copper red designs. From the mid 1990s he has produced forms in Southern Ice Porcelain, some with coloured metal salts decoration, other pieces unglazed with deep etched, shellac resist decoration. In 2001 with artist Lauren Black, he developed the Flora Tasmanica set of limited edition plates, inspired by Royal Copenhagen's Florica Danica. Through his Pottery he used his experience and knowledge of technology to make tableware ranges, including a special set of dinnerware for the Vice-Chancellor, University of Tasmania. For some years from the mid-seventies he also worked in glass.