Barry Brickell
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1935, d.2016
Loco boiler (with alternative stacks for warming the hands)
- 1976
- Terracotta
- Purchased, 1976
- 260 x 530 x 170mm
- 89/45
Tags: chimneys (architectural elements), locomotives, trains (vehicle groupings)
Barry Brickell began working with clay at the age of fifteen in 1950 and the following year built his first kiln at his parents’ home in Devonport, Auckland. He started exhibiting his pots in 1955. After a two-term stint in 1961 teaching high school art and science in the Coromandel, he resigned and set out to become a full-time potter. After purchasing a small block of land in the area, he also embarked on the creation of his renowned Driving Creek Railway and Potteries complex. In 1975 construction got under way on an elaborate 266mm gauge railway that was originally intended for transporting clay and firewood fuel to his studio and kilns but later became a visitor attraction. Loco boiler, which seems to encapsulate Brickell’s lifelong dual fascination with steam engines and the possibilities of clay, was purchased from the New Zealand Society of Potters exhibition in Christchurch in 1976.
(Leaving for Work 2 October 2021 - 1 May 2022)
Exhibition History
Locomotive is a delightful piece of whimsy, prompted by Barry Brickell’s fascination with steam trains. At his property in the Coromandel Barry Brickell built the only narrow-gauge mountain railway in New Zealand. He built it so he could have access to the clay and wood he needed for his kiln, without doing damage to the environment. Although made entirely of clay, this locomotive and its funnels look like iron, with convincing rivets and joins. Leaving the surface unglazed, the iron oxides in the clay suggest a rusty steam engine. It shows Brickell’s complete understanding and mastery of the fired clay process. A pioneer among New Zealand potters, he developed a completely original style. Born in Taranaki, Brickell first began to work with clay in 1950, after exploring the local gas and firebrick works in Devonport, Auckland. His first major exhibition was at the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1959. He exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally and wrote extensively on New Zealand pottery. Barry Brickell died in 2016.
Related reading: Ceramics
Interview
Raising the Clay
One of the themes explored in the Gallery’s new exhibition Leaving for Work is local industry, particularly in relation to pottery. The show includes an 1896 painting by Charles Kidson of well-known early Sydenham potter Luke Adams; three late nineteenth-century pots by Adams; and projections of a number of exceptional photographs by Steffano Webb. Keen to learn more, exhibition curator Ken Hall met up with local pottery historian Barry Hancox – perhaps best-known as former Smith’s Bookshop proprietor – and leading New Zealand photographer, Oxford-based Mark Adams. Mark’s links to this story include a distant family connection to Luke Adams; photographing many celebrated New Zealand potters of the 1970s and 1980s; and an abiding interest in land and memory.
Interview
A Passion for Clay and Pots
In recent months, retired potter and former president of the Canterbury Potters’ Association, Rex Valentine – a man passionate about clay – and art consultant Grant Banbury have been working behind-the-scenes in the Gallery alongside registration, curatorial and conservation staff. They’ve been assisting with an audit of a part of the collection that we’re excited to be working with more – the Gallery’s ceramics holdings.
Here Banbury and Valentine discuss the latter’s own production and involvement in pottery circles in Canterbury from the late 1960s to the 1980s; his time spent in studying pottery in Japan, and his involvement with pottery acquisitions during Brian Muir’s directorship of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. The edited extracts that follow are from an interview recorded at Valentine’s home in Christchurch on 10 April 2021.
Exhibition
Cheryl Lucas: Shaped by Schist and Scoria
Seductive surfaces and tough issues – these are ceramics made for the eyes and mind.