Sacred Vessels
27 November 2011

The Sacred Vessels were made by Tom Lochhead (1917-2005) of Kirkcudbright.


The following obituary on Tom Lochhead was published in The Herald on 16 April 2005 and is reproduced here with the kind permission of www.HeraldScotland.com.

TOM LOCHHEAD, POTTER - born 1917, died April 5, 2005

Tom Lochhead has been called "the godfather of Scottish studio ceramics". Tom was the first studio potter to set up north of the border and was a key influence in the development of Scottish ceramics.
Born in 1917, near Milngavie, he moved three years later with his farming family to settle in Dumfriesshire, where he grew up and attended school at Mouswald and Dumfries Academy. Lochhead was a classmate of the painter Robin Philipson, who went on to become head of drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art, which is where they both went to study in 1936. After sharing digs in Marchmont they moved to a caravan, which he had built from scratch on the chassis of an old farm trailer.

"It was quite handy as it was at Bonaly, close to the tramlines, which took us straight into the city in the mornings and allowed us to spend longer periods at the college, attending night classes." he said.

Alick Wolfenden, who had been a pupil of the distinguished potterWilliam Staite Murray at London's Royal College of Art, first introduced Tom to ceramics. After graduating he left the college in 1941 following a post-diploma year and it was seven years later that he set up his first kiln at the Old Mill in Kirkcudbright.

Tom Lochhead established Scotland's first studio pottery in an old corn mill he bought in 1945. The grounds contained an artist's studio which dated back to 1900 and was built by the American painter Charles Oppenheimer. Tom converted the timber frame building, imported from Canada, into a house where he and his wife Anne raised their family of five children.

Tom was attracted to Kirkcudbright by the lively artistic community and over the years became a leading and proud member of that community. He helped set up a summer school in the royal burgh which ran for almost 30 years from 1948 and attracted distinguished artists such as John Maxwell. The summer school inspired many to go on to follow similar careers and many more tointroduce ceramics into colleges and schools throughout Scotland.

Tom was nicknamed "the prophet" by his fellow Kirkcudbright artist Jessie M King, referring both to his long, flowing hair and his calling as a local evangelical preacher. A committed Christian, he was a conscientious objector during the Second World War and throughout his early years in Kirkcudbright worked tirelessly to spread the message of the Gospel.

In 2000, when asked about his greatest achievement, he responded: "I took an old artist's studio and single-handedly made it into a home in which we raised a family of five. I am proud to say that I did it all myself with little more than a hammer and saw."

He is survived by three sons, Gavin, David and Wilson, two daughters Anne and Lynsey, and nine grandchildren.