dneese on wed 5 may 04
From the San Antonio Express-News:
Harding Black, a master potter and expert on early Chinese porcelain glazes
he learned to duplicate, has died. He was 92.
Black, who had moved from San Antonio to Reno, Nev., in 1998 to be closer to
his brother Robert, died in a Reno nursing home on Sunday of respiratory
failure.
Though he had no formal training, Black used a simple trial-and-error method
to successfully reproduce many of the glazes, especially the copper red
glazes, of China's Ming and Sung dynasties.
The results of those tests - about 14,000 test tiles, some the size of a
postage stamp - are now at Baylor University.
"Harding would see a picture in a book on Chinese glazes and he'd say, 'I
have to do it," said Bob Doyal, a protege of Black's and a teacher of
pottery at the Carver Community Cultural Center.
Paul McCoy, a professor at Baylor, said Black also left copious notebooks
with the formulas for the glazes.
"He was a walking dictionary of ceramics history and culture throughout the
various regions of the world," McCoy said. "He did so much research that it
just boggles the mind. I don't know of any one person who has amassed this
much research."
What was unusual about Black was that he was generous with his research,
said William P. Daley, emeritus distinguished professor at the University of
the Arts in Philadelphia.
"He was generous with his discoveries, and that was unusual because most
ceramics people were secretive and wouldn't share," Daley said.
Born April 15, 1912, near Aransas Pass, Black and his family came to San
Antonio in 1916. He attended San Antonio Junior College after graduating
from Brackenridge High School in 1929.
His interest in pottery began in 1931 while excavating Indian caves at Big
Bend as a member of the Archaeological Society of the Witte Museum.
Two years later, Black learned to make wheel-thrown pottery from legendary
potter Rudolf Staffel.
During the Great Depression, Black taught children's ceramic classes in a
streetcar behind the Witte.
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