RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593
SHIWAN POTTERY EXPLORED

FREDRIKKE SKINSNES SCOLLARD*

In April of 1977 I had the opportunity to visit the pottery-producing town of Shiwan for the first time with the Oriental Ceramic Society tour. At that time for foreigners, group travel to China from Hong Kong still involved months of waiting for approval, and the individual trip needed for my own research of Shiwan pottery was an impossibility. The day spent in Shiwan however, was sufficient to establish a few acquaintances and to discover that fundamental archaeological research was in progress.

In May of the same year I gave a talk to the Oriental Ceramic Society titled "Shiwan Reverberatory". The reason for the choice of that title was that in ten years' experience studying Shiwan pottery, I have met with a great deal of resistance to the study of these wares. Art historians feel they are a coarse and unimportant local product with little esthetic merit, and even most non-specialists more often than not react with "I just don't like it." In a first lecture on Shiwan pottery, I therefore did not expect to gain immediate converts to this art with a very different and unfamiliar esthetic. Rather, the choice of the title indicated that I felt the subject was worthy of much more attention, and that I hoped, over the next few years, my audience would have repeated opportunity to see and study Shiwan pottery, thereby slowly gaining familiarity with its esthetic.

Indeed, over the last two years, more attention has been paid to these wares. In October of 1977, the Hong Kong Museum of Art in cooperation with the Leal Senado of Macau, staged an exhibition of 139 pieces and published a full colour catalogue. Mr. Lawrence Tam delivered an excellent talk to this Society on the subject, and Mr. Nigel Cameron critiqued the exhibition with his "Second Thoughts on Shekwan" in the South China Morning Post.1 At present, the Fung Ping Shan Museum of the University of Hong Kong, in cooperation with Guangzhou museums, is preparing a joint exhibition on Shiwan pottery for the fall of 1979.

* Ms. Scollard holds Masters' degrees in the History of Art (Hawaii) and Chinese Literature (Chicago). She is Associate-in-Research, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207
Kong throughout the year to a large variety of destinations in China. Other societies of a cultural nature in Hong Kong do not seem to have experienced the kind of difficulties we have, in obtaining touring permission, and it appears now that it is of great advantage to have a local contact to work through, and on a society's behalf. This is something we might perhaps try to pursue for our own future interests.

The visits to Northern Thailand and Korea which were tentatively suggested previously, were not in fact followed up, for a variety of reasons. Members are always able to make their own arrangements to travel to neighbouring territories for brief holidays, and we feel the Society's best role is to cater for interests of members wishing to travel to places either more difficult of access, or very expensive when arranged on an individual or non-group basis. Substantial group airfare reductions, lower per head costs for jeeps and buses, and so on, all help the Society to provide very substantial savings to those joining our tours. Overseas tours have been a very attractive part of our programme to many members of the Society, and Dr. Shaw, who took over the major role in arranging long-distance tours from Ms. Helga Berger, has worked very hard on our behalf. I would like to take this opportunity of thanking him very much indeed for giving so much thought and attention to these very successful expeditions.

To be solely responsible, however, for making what are often quite complicated arrangements, is very time-consuming and we will have to give some thought in the future to sharing out the tasks that are involved: perhaps calling upon other members not only of the Council but of the Society generally to initiate plans and conduct such tours. I would ask anybody who is interested in contributing time and effort to this aspect of our activities to contact Dr. Shaw or other Council members.

The Council also arranges from time to time day, or half-day, trips, to places of local interest. In March of last year a group went to Macau and visited the Bishop's Palace, Leal Senado Council Chamber, Club de Macau, Teatro Dom Pedro V, and several churches not normally open for tours. They also were fortunate in enjoying a lavish Portuguese lunch at the Club de Macau hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Carlos and Mr. and Mrs. Rodrigues. The tour leaders were Carl Smith and Leigh Wright of your Council, and, at the Macau end, an old friend of the Society, Father Teixeira. I would like to thank all those involved, in various ways, in making this a very pleasant trip.

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