Madge Spencer Large Stoneware Vase, c2000, Leach/Carribean influence

Madge Spencer (born 1941) is a potter of Jamaican origin. Her uncle was the renowned Jamaican potter, Cecil Baugh, who trained with Bernard Leach in England before moving back to Jamaica. It was through Baugh that Madge became interested in pottery. She was the first woman to graduate in ceramics from the Jamaica School of Art and Craft, and following her graduation she moved to England in 1967, establishing herself in Nottingham, where she still lives and works.

The catalogue for one of Spencer's exhibitions (Double Vision: An exhibiton of contemporary Afro-Caribbean art, held at Cartwright Hall, Bradford, 8 November 1986 - 4 January 1987) said that “Madge’s African heritage forms part of her self-awareness as a potter, so much so that on viewing a Nigerian exhibition she felt an immediate empathy with the forms she saw there. Her pottery embodies both the Caribbean and English traditions; as Madge herself said: ‘…all my pots relate to English and Caribbean traditions and influences: Jamaican colours and shapes moulded from English clay.”’

The vase has Spencer's painted monogram on the base.