Harold Randolf Hughan (1893-1987) was born in Mildura, Victoria. He trained as an electrical engineer, and took up pottery as a part-time interest in his fifties, after his wife Lily and son Robert began taking lessons. Taught to hand-build in the style of F.E. Cox, he set up his own studio in Glen Iris, Melbourne, in 1941, and began making lead-glazed earthenware. In 1945, he converted to stoneware, influenced by the collection of Chinese Sung and T'ang ceramics in the National Gallery of Victoria, a British Council exhibition touring Australia, and books such as 'A Potter's Craft' by F.C. Binns and, especially, 'A Potter's Book' by Bernard Leach. He made his own kick-wheel and started using feldspar and iron oxide to create celadon and tenmoku glazes with occasional use of dolomite for special effects. His research into stoneware bodies and glazes was aided by Robert who was a ceramic technologist with the CSIRO. His first one-man exhibition was held at Georges Gallery in 1950 and, over the next decade, he introduced a generaton of Australian potters to the Leach aesthetic. In 1963, he retired and devoted himself full-time to pottery. In 1968 a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the National Gallery of Victoria. In 1978 he was awarded an MBE for his service to pottery. He continued making pots into his nineties, dying in 1987 at the age of 94. His early works are marked H GI (for Glen Iris) in oxide. Works from 1945 are marked with an impressed H GI and may also be signed in oxide.
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