Comments on: Len Castle, 1924-2011

By: Janette Tekaawa

Janette Tekaawa — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:51:19 +0000

kiaora I’m a student at Waiariki institute of technology and I am at present doing a paper on pottery. I have the pleasure of studing Len Castle and to my amazement did not know how prescious or how in touch he was with his love of clay, glazes and even sand. His knowledge of clay is outstanding and I feel blessed to have this opportunity to study one of New Zealands most sort after work. The Potter of all Potters. Thank you Len

By: Tim Caulton

Tim Caulton — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:55:27 +0000

One of my favourite Castle collectables has been the spice pots. The most common seem to be the ones with a two tone spotty cream upper and deep red brown lower section. But I have seen other colours and other pot styles. Including a set of triangular spice pots. A curious thing about them is they always came in different sizes, regardless of what was on the label. So you could get a large bay leaves or a small one. Some of the largest ones I have seen have no text on them, and recently a coffee jar has turned up in the same spice jar style. Not many of them were made. Be on the look out for one with the ANGELICA label.

By: Justine Olsen

Justine Olsen — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 03:33:36 +0000

Thanks Ron.

Whilst we have largely non-functional work by Castle, we have recently acquired a bowl circa 1950 which shows his considerable ability in throwing at such an early stage in his practice. This will appear on Collections-Online in the future. We are keen to develop and represent a wider range of his work.

Justine Olsen

By: Ron Brownson

Ron Brownson — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:53:50 +0000

As a child my mother regularly visited Rotorua where we always visited the Eric Scholes Gallery. It was there that my mother assembled an extensive set of spice and herb pots that Len Castle had made. Month after month she purchased them. They were not cheap (37 to 45 shillings each).

Later in his life, Len did not often refer to this aspect of his ceramic work. Yet, like Bernard Leech, domestic ware was his bread and butter source of income.

I still have this amazing collection. Oddly, no Museum seems to represent this aspect of his art.