Mo Abbaro (17 October 1933 – 12 March 2016),"Mo Abbaro, ceramicist – obituary"
''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

'', 19 May 2016.Abbaro, Halida and Besheer (2016)
"Mohammed Ahmed Abdalla Abbaro 1933-2016"
''CPA News: The Craft Potters Association'', Number 167, pp. 8–9. also known professionally as Mo Abdalla or Mohammed Ahmed Abdalla Abbaro, was a London-based

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

ese ceramicist and

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US *Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska *Potters, New Jerse ...

, who has been described by artist Oliver Bloom as "one of the world's finest ceramicists".

Life and career

Mohammed Ahmed Abdalla Abbaro was born in Abu Jibayha,

. He graduated in Fine and Applied Arts from Khartoum Technical Institute in 1958, the following year winning a scholarship to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

to study ceramics at the

Central School of Arts and Crafts The Central School of Art and Design was a art school, school of fine arts, fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School ...

. He did postgraduate studies in industrial pottery design at the North Staffordshire College of Ceramics, after which he had a period of training in chemical analyses of ceramics materials at the North Staffs College of Ceramics Technology."Mo A Abbaro, Ceramisist"
British Museum. website. He went back to Sudan to teach ceramics for some years, but decided to return to England in 1966 to pursue his career in Britain. He taught ceramics at the

Camden Arts Centre Camden Art Centre (known as Hampstead Arts Centre until 1967 and Camden Arts Centre until 2020) is a contemporary art gallery in the London Borough of Camden, England. It hosts temporary exhibitions and educational outreach projects, with a prog ...

for more than two decades, and had many exhibitions in London—including at the

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings a ...

, the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fi ...

(as part of Africa '95), the

Mall Galleries Mall commonly refers to a: * Shopping mall * Strip mall * Pedestrian zone * Esplanade Mall or MALL may also refer to: Places Shopping complexes * The Mall (Bromley), London, United Kingdom * The Mall (Patna), Bihar, India * The Mall (Sofia), ...

, and the Iraqi Cultural Centre—and elsewhere in the UK, as well as in the US and Sweden. His studio and showroom were in King Henry's Road, close to

Primrose Hill Primrose Hill is a Grade II listed public park located north of Regent's Park in London, England, first opened to the public in 1842.Mills, A., ''Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) It was named after the natural hill in the centre of t ...

. He turned to writing in later life, publishing works on ceramic technique, such as ''Modern Ceramics—On the Interplay of Forms and Surfaces'' (2000), as well as on his own family history, including ''The History of the Abbaros of Sudan since the 15th Century'' (1997). His ceramics are in the collections of London's

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, the

Institut du Monde Arabe The Institut du Monde Arabe (, ''Arab World Institute''; abbr. IMA) is an organisation founded in Paris in 1980 by France with 18 Arab countries to research and disseminate information about the Arab world and its cultural and spiritual values. ...

in Paris, and the

Smithsonian Museum The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, education and research centers, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trus ...

, Washington."Mohammed Ahmed Abdalla"
Smithsonian National Institute of African Art. His work was shown in Frederique Cifuentes's 2017 exhibition ''Sudan: Emergence of Singularities'' at the P21 Gallery, London.

Family

He was married to Rose (née Glennie), since 1964, daughter of composer

Elisabeth Lutyens Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 190614 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a me ...

and granddaughter of Sir

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials ...

. Abbaro died aged 80 in London on 12 March 2016, survived by his wife and their son and two daughters.

References

External links

* Oliver Bloom
"The ceramicist"
YouTube video, 18 October 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Abbaro, Mo 1933 births 2016 deaths 20th-century ceramists 20th-century Sudanese artists 21st-century ceramists 21st-century Sudanese artists African potters College of Fine and Applied Art (Khartoum) alumni Sudanese ceramists Sudanese emigrants to the United Kingdom People from South Kordofan

Life and career

Family

See also

References

External links