Our 70th Anniversary

1955 - 2025  - How Did We Get This Far…

By Debra Sloan, assisted by Allan Collier’s pre-WWII  knowledge

A view of the 70th Anniversary Show at the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver. On until January 15, 2026.

David Lambert, aka, the ‘Father of BC Pottery’, wrote in the catalogue for Retrospect 80, the PGBC’s 25th anniversary exhibition:

"I do not expect the Guild to do anything for me without my doing something for it. The belonging to and enjoyment of the Guild imposes duties which I accept. It accepts my shortcomings.  It listens and talks to me. I remember all my friends who were among its causative agents. How they would have liked to see this Guild and this exhibition [Retrospect 80].  I see it and appreciate it for them."

Studio ceramics were introduced into BC during the 1920s by Axel Ebring, the first trained standard-ware potter who set up his pottery in Notch Hill, and by Mary Young, a potter from Ottawa and Banff, who conducted BC's first pottery classes in Summerland and Victoria. In 1923, Mary’s students included Doris Cordy, who exhibited in Eastern Canada in the 20s and 30s; and in Victoria, another of her students, Margaret Grute, became a highly regarded local potter, instructor, and pottery advocate for over 20 years. Along with Emily Carr, Margaret sold items made of local clay to tourists starting in the mid 1920s.

In 1927, the Vancouver School of the Decorative and Applied Arts initiated pottery classes with instructors Grace Melvin, and Doris Le Croq and Marian McCrae in the 1930s. Francis Gatewood and Mollie Carter were prominent pre-WWII graduates.

 In 1940 Bernard Leach’s,  A Potter’s Book was published, and during the next decades his philosophy swept through the UK, the Commonwealth, and USA. It was this book that propelled such keen interest in independent studio potteries and prompted six BC potters to study with Bernard Leach between 1958-1977.

After WWII  David Lambert set up Lambert Potteries Manufactory, and Robert Weghsteen, a Belgian potter, established a more formal ceramics department at the VSA from which have followed many of BC’s leading institutional instructors. One, Don Hutchinson, in 1970 headed the ceramic department at Langara, which in turn has also engendered many prominent BC  potters.  In 1960, Yugoslavian artist, Zeljko Kujundzic, helped establish the Kootenay School of Art and its very successful ceramics department, headed by Santo Mignosa of the UBC Pottery Huts in the early 60s, followed by Walter Dexter, and presently by Robin Dupont who is fighting the closure of the KSA.

In 1951, Olea Davis, facilitated by UBC’s Gordon Schrum, opened the UBC Ceramic Huts. Olea was not only one of the founders of the Potters Guild of BC in 1955, but by inviting many internationally renowned ceramicists to teach at the Ceramic Huts she created a diverse and sophisticated foundation for ceramics in BC. During those early years many modernist ceramicists, Hilda Ross, Avery Hughye, Santo Mignosa and Thomas Kakinuma, from the Ceramic Huts had their work exhibited across Canada, and they were all awarded in prestigious international exhibitions during the 1950s and 60s. However, during the 1970s the Leach/Mingei oeuvre swept aside these modernists, which is a pity as the many of the records of their work have been lost. However, it was, and is, the Leach/Mingei oeuvre that has engendered the proliferation of studios throughout BC, the source of many of BC finest ceramics.

Doris Shadbolt was championing ceramics at the VAG, during the 1960s and 70s, and facilitated  several group-shows and 4 solo exhibitions, the last being Wayne Ngan’s in 1979 - which was the last focused ceramic exhibition at the VAG for forty-six years, until the 2025 catalogued exhibition, Written in Clay, From the Collection of John David Lawrence, a showing of 186 works, by 40 different potters. ranging from the mid 1920s to 2014.

When Hiro Urakami opened his seminal gallery, House of Ceramics, in 1972, he galvanized the ceramic community. After the closure of his gallery in 1978, the PGBC’s biggest ambition was to open their own - an ambition voiced in the 1980 catalogue for the Retrospect 80. In 1986 Hiro went on to be the manager of the PGBC’s first version, the Spring Gallery, later renamed, Gallery of BC Ceramics, which sadly was forced to close in 2018.

In 1965 the PGBC started to publish an excellent and informative newsletter which continues today with the invaluable editorial support by Melany Hallam. The Guild’s newsletters are researchable and are an archival record, tracking the people and events. The BC Ceramic Mark Registry established in 2022, is also trying to keep a record of the extraordinary diversity of BC artists, reflecting the still occurring worldwide importation of knowledge, and conversely, the worldwide reach of BC ceramic artists.

The PGBC has an impressive exhibition record and was particularly busy with annual or biannual exhibitions during the 1960s and 70s. After the opening of the Gallery of BC Ceramics where exhibitions were frequently held, the reason for large survey membership exhibitions diminished. In 2005 many celebratory events around the 50th anniversary were organized by the late Jinny Whitehead. The main survey and catalogued exhibition, TransFormations,  was held at the Burnaby Art Gallery, curated and juried by Hiro Urakami, Carol Mayer and Darrin Martins. In 2019, The PGBC hosted Best BC Ceramics, a large survey exhibition at the Lipont Gallery, and now we have come the 70th Anniversary exhibition, Earth, Fire, and Form, being held at the Italian Cultural Centre, curated by Angela Clarke, and juried by Ying Yueh Chuang and Debra Sloan. It is an exhibition which clearly demonstrates the vast array of skills and practices now taking place in BC, a mere one-hundred years after being introduced.

The Potters Guild of BC is the oldest provincial ceramic guild in Canada, something we should all be proud and of and strive to support and sustain. As David Lambert said in 1980, “I do not expect the Guild to do anything for me without my doing something for it.”