Design and Art Australia Online

Harold Hughan, called “Buzz” by his close friends, was born in Mildura, the second of ten children born to Emily (née Clayton) and Randolph Hughan. He spent most of his childhood in Hamilton and it was here that he was first apprenticed as a mechanical engineer. In 1910 he moved to Geelong and completed a correspondence course to qualify as an electrical engineer. He enlisted in the AIF in 1915 and from 1916 to 1918 served on the Western Front, being commissioned as a lieutenant in 1918.In 1919 he married Lily Booth and the couple returned to Australia in 1920, working as an electrical engineer in Melbourne until his retirement in 1963.
He had always been interested in crafts, especially woodwork and weaving, but in 1940 his wife and son Robert introduced him to pottery. As with many others in the English speaking world, he was profoundly influenced by the studio approach of Bernard Leach’s A Potter’s Book (1940). He soon put his engineering skills to good use by building a mechanical potter’s wheel and built his own kiln, establishing a studio pottery and workshop in his Glen Iris home.
His work was domestic in scale as he sought to create an Australian idiom, albeit influenced by the natural glazes and hand thrown aesthetic of Chinese and Japanese ceramics. His first solo exhibition at Georges Gallery in Melbourne in 1950 led to his work being acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria as well as an enduring friendship with its curator of ceramics, Kenneth Hood. While his work has been widely collected in other Australian art museums and the Victorian and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria has the largest and most significant collection. He was also honoured with retrospective exhibitions in 1969 and in 1983 (both curated by Kenneth Hood).

Writers:

Date written:

2019

Last updated:

2021