Doreen Blumhardt (right) during a demonstration to the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery Pottery Group in Napier. Photo / Daily Telegraph, June 29, 1970.
Phil Lascelles is collection assistant copyright at MTG
The story of studio pottery in Te Matau-a-Māui is one of community, collaboration and persistence.
Our upcoming exhibition Earth and Fire: conversations in clay takes its name from the Earth and Fire newsletter of the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery Pottery Group in the 1970s and 80s, a title that captures the spirit of pottery as both craft and art form.
Creative pottery in Hawke’s Bay began at our predecessor, the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery & Museum in 1954. With the encouragement of director Leo Bestall, and support from local makers, the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery Pottery Group was formed. It met in the basement of the MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri building, working together in a shared space that quickly became a centre for learning and experimentation.
Five years later, in 1959, the group hosted the 3rd National Pottery Exhibition at McLean Park in Ahuriri/Napier. Critics noted that while craftsmanship was good and some pieces were world-class, much of the work relied on the safe designs of British studio potter Bernard Leach, whose 1945 publication A Potter’s Book was considered the bible of the craft at that time.
In her 1967 book, 10 Years of Pottery in New Zealand, potter Helen Mason recalled an overseas art commentator dismissing local pottery as a “social activity” offering “creative, communal sharing” across the boredom and isolation of Aotearoa/New Zealand.
These critics had overlooked that from the start Aotearoa pottery was built on a community model, where shared knowledge and resources were rapidly becoming world-class.
Copies of the old Earth and Fire newsletters, produced by the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery Pottery Group, are held in the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust archives.
They record the group’s activities, workshops, exhibitions and community spirit. They list kiln firings, exhibition opportunities, visiting tutors and fundraising efforts.
They include practical tips for solving glaze problems and document the many ways in which members supported each other. Far from being a social pursuit, pottery in Hawke’s Bay was built on shared knowledge and collective enthusiasm.
The newsletters record workshops held by visiting senior New Zealand and international potters. Local potters such as Roy Cowan, Marcia Wilkinson, Royce McGlashen, (now Dame) Doreen Blumhardt, Bruce and Estelle Martin, and Harry and May Davis offered weekend classes in design, throwing, glazing, firing and more. International masters — Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, and Japanese potters Takeichi Kawai and Shoji Hamada — left their mark through demonstrations and teaching.
The result was a rich blend of local experimentation shaped by global traditions.
I recently met Penny and Michael Madden of Taradale, whose passion for making pottery has continued for more than 50 years. During those development years, Penny was twice president of the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery Pottery Group and served even longer as secretary. Like many senior members, she taught, ran workshops and mentored potters in design and glaze chemistry. Michael, drawing on his engineering background, built kilns, pug mills and other equipment for both the club and their own use. Their story is typical of the generosity, persistence and collaboration that underpin the survival and flourishing of pottery as both craft and art in the region.
The Pottery Group and Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery & Museum parted during the city council restructuring of the museum in the 1990s and became the Napier Pottery Club, which continues to flourish, celebrating its 70th birthday last year.
Our upcoming exhibition is drawn from the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust pottery collection, which is strongly influenced by the development period of the 1970s and 1980s. Many works were made by those who came to Hawke’s Bay to share their knowledge and expertise during that time, collected through national exhibitions or purchased from visiting tutors. The development of the craft since those days is evident in the move away from the purely functional to more vigorous pots that express the maker’s individual style, though the influence of British and Japanese masters remains clear.
Our exhibition includes the story of Te Matau-a-Māui potters Bruce and Estelle Martin, who studied Japanese styles and techniques that shaped their work. In the late 1970s, they constructed an anagama kiln at their home in Bridge Pā, with Japanese guidance. This wood-fired kiln, one of the first in Aotearoa, produced remarkable works with long firings, subtle ash effects, and Japanese-influenced design that became their hallmark.
The story of pottery here is not just about art objects but about people working together. It is about shared kilns and borrowed tools, about newsletters passed hand to hand, and about the patience of teachers guiding beginners through the mysteries of glaze and firing. Above all, it is about community. Hawke’s Bay pottery thrived not because of individual brilliance alone but because, together, its practitioners created the conditions for creativity to take root in clay.
Our exhibition tells this journey, the stylistic milestones New Zealand potters achieved along the way and the influence these artists have had on each other and on later generations.