Yesterday, a woman told me she saw #LadiKwali build a large pot at Arrowmont School of Craft in Tennessee in the 1970s. She told me that when Kwali was finally done, she danced and danced, joyously around her pot—a detail I hadn’t heard before.
I believe it’s the same pot I got to see and touch when I was last at Arrowmont in 2023. #pottery #ceramics #NigerianPottery
“Pottery Is Womens’ Work” – the triumph of Nigerian ceramicist Ladi Kwali
So in the early 1960s my father, who was working in Nigeria, purchased a large ceramic pot; as he wrote in his diary: (emphasis mine)
“Princess Alexandra whom, when she visited it to celebrate its Independence the North [OF NIGERIA] had taken especially to its heart, was soon to marry and a suitable wedding present had been under active discussion for some time. Officialdom favoured some items of Abuja Pottery thrown by the famous woman potter Ladi Kwali, whose work had attracted critical attention and to whom Michael Cardew (the Director of the Abuja Pottery–a project that he and Sam White had thought up together in 1951 and himself a craftsman of international reputation) paid high tribute. Accordingly, a Pot, a Dish and a Ewer, all thrown by Ladi, were chosen personally by Cardew to be purchased by the Regional Government. When they arrived in Kaduna, however, they were not considered by the politicians “to be sufficiently representative of Northern Craftsmanship and Tradition” (pottery, after all was “women’s work!” ) and a quantity of Hausa leatherwork was substituted and duly despatched to London instead! To close the matter once and for all, the Pot, Ewer and Dish were advertised for sale by auction. I bought the Pot, so that my children would always have some concrete reminder of their association with Nigeria and John Smith (who had been [SIR BRUCE] Greatbatch’s Assistant–and who later was to become the Governor of the Gilbert and Ellis (sic) Islands) bought the Ewer and the Dish. With my children’s consent, that Pot is now on permanent display in the City of Birmingham’s Museum and Art Gallery, there to be properly appreciated in a major collection of similar artefacts”
My sisters and I are selling that pot at auction this week; her works are highly sought-after, and some more innovative pieces are reaching prices of above £30,000, even above £130,000. Ladi Kwali’s face adorns the Nigerian 20 Naira note, and the Abuja Pottery was expanded in scope and renamed after her.
If you’re in London today/tomorrow you can see the pot on display in Seven Dials.
Some “womens’ work”.
Pottery by Osa
alecm