Len Castle
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Leonard Ramsay "Len" Castle, DCNZM, CBE (born 1924) is a New Zealand potter. Born in Auckland in 1924, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1946 from University of Auckland and trained as a secondary schoolteacher, eventually taking a lecturing position at the Auckland College of Education. Self taught, he began making his first pottery in 1947. In 1956 he moved to St Ives, Cornwall for a year to work with Bernard Leach, (1887-1979), and became a full-time potter in 1963. The same year he helped establish the New Zealand Society of Potters.
In the early 1960s he had an architecturally designed house built in the bush of the Waitakere Ranges at 20 Tawini Road, Titirangi, with a kiln and rail system out the back, and a low basement which allowed pottery to be exhibited. Turning room for tour buses was provided in the street outside. The Boyes family which bought the house demolished the kiln; however, the bricks from it form the paving round the lower part of the house, and shards from discarded pottery works can still be found amongst the clay soil of the bush behind.
In the early 1950s Len Castle meets Theo Schoon and he decorates the surfaces of pots thrown and fired by Castle. In 1960’s Schoon introduced him to the geothermal areas of the central North Island of New Zealand. Castle has continued to photographically document this landscape area and his glazes and clay work reflect this exploration. Simpson ,P (2008) Mountains to the Sea. Hawke’s bay Museum and Art Gallery, Napier. ISBN 978-0-473-13835-6
Castle studied pottery in Japan, Korea and China in 1966-7. He names Shoji Hamada (1894-1978), as one of his influences. He built a new house in South Titirangi with a larger kiln and even more extensive railway to serve it in 1972-3, which is still operating. In 1986, he received a CBE for services to pottery. He was awarded the New Zealand Commemorative Medal in 1990 for services to the country. In 2004 he was awarded DCNZM. In 1989, along with a number of other New Zealand ceramic and glass artists, he was commissioned to supply work for the New Zealand pavilion at the World Expo at Seville in 1991. He was declared an Icon of New Zealand Art in 2001. "Len Castle: Potter" won a Montana Book Award for non fiction in 2003.
[edit] External links
- New Zealand Art Icons site
- New Zealand Potters site
- Len Castle, 1976, Steve Rumsey, Collection of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- Decisive moment, 1962, Steve Rumsey, Collection of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
