In an era when pottery was still regarded as a lesser art form Cecil Baugh was a pioneer in educating Jamaican art lovers and gaining their respect for its fine art status.
Cecil Baugh first developed an interest in clay making and ceramics as a young man living in Kingston. His first contact came through the Trenchfield sisters who lived in his Mountain View community. Originally from St Elizabeth, the sister made ‘yabbas’ in the traditional African way, and Baugh who had never seen these techniques in his home parish of Portland, became fascinated. He also recognized that making pots was a lucrative business, especially in the days before refrigeration when ‘yabbas’ were used for cool storage. Along with a fellow potter Wilfred Lord he established the Cornwall Works in Montego Bay, but later transferred to St Ann and then back to Kingston. Always innovative, Baugh worked to develop his techniques in pot making, experimenting with glazes and learning the intricacies of kiln firing to perfect his skills. Increasingly he moved further from the African tradition towards Western and Asian styles achieving his own distinctive coloured glazes.
“We turned out a wide range of free-form pottery, figurines, bric-a-brac, vases, drip jars (indispensable for cooling water in the days before refrigeration became commonplace), flower pots – and my own speciality in monkey-jars, with the distinctive four ribbed hand piece. But the experience with firing pots, the perfection of the Egyptian blue and green glaze, my beautiful turquoise, as I call it, was the most valuable”.
In 1941 however, Baugh switched tack, opting to join the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME). There, he received army training and even some art classes. He also traveled extensively touring places like England, Canada, Ireland, and Africa.
Returning to Jamaica after the war, Baugh threw himself into developing his ceramic skills, winning local art competitions and the attention of Mr Hugh Paget, a representative of the British Council. In this way, he was awarded a British Council scholarship and the possibility of returning to England to work with Cornwall potters such as Michael Cardow and Bernard Leach. All this would help to enrich his experiences as an artist and his skills as a ceramist, so much so that on his next return to Jamaica (1949) he was invited by Edna Manley to become the Jamaica School of Art’s first tutor of Ceramics, a post he would hold for the next 24 years instructing the likes of Jean Taylor-Bushay, Gene Pearson and Norma Harrack. Since then his career and output has been astounding, he holds one-person exhibitions almost annually and has participated in many significant group exhibitions. His works have become highly prized by collectors who now have informed and respectful understanding of his art form.
© PA-S