Warren MacKenzie

Born 1924 Kansas City, Missouri

Died 2018  Stillwater, Minnesota

EDUCATION

1941-1943Painting, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

1946-1947BFA Ceramics, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

1950-1952Apprenticed to Bernard Leach, St. Ives, Cornwall, England

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1953-1990Professor, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

1981-1985Department Chair, Studio Arts, University of Minnesota

1953-2018Pottery studio, Stillwater Farm, Stillwater, Minnesota

APPRENTICESHIPS AND RESIDENCIES

1950-1952Apprentice to Bernard Leach, St. Ives, England

BIOGRAPHY 

Warren MacKenzie is known for simple, wheel-thrown functional pottery influenced by Bernard Leach and the Japanese aesthetic seen in the work of Shoji Hamada.

In 1950 MacKenzie and his first wife Alix became the first American apprentices at the Bernard Leach pottery at St. Ives. They spent 2 years there where they met Shoji Hamada.

The MacKenzies brought Leach and Hamada for a workshop tour of the United States in 1952. This tour had a far-reaching impact on the American studio pottery movement. MacKenzie is credited with bringing the Japanese Mingei, or folk, style of pottery to Minnesota, where it is known as the Mingei-sota style.  Most of his pieces are produced in stoneware, although he worked in porcelain at times during his career. His first wife, Alix, decorated his pots until her death in 1962. At times during the 1970s and most of the 2000s, MacKenzie did not sign his work. He resumed the use of his chop at the end of 2009.

An interview with Warren MacKenzie conducted October 19, 2002, by Robert Silberman for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America is available at:
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-warren-mackenzie-12417.