About Andrew

ANDREW WALFORD has been working in his mountain top studio overlooking the Shongweni dam and game reserve for nearly 40 years. He arrived in Africa in a wooden airplane in 1947 and except for a brief stay lecturing at the art school in Hamburg Germany in the Sixties he has been working and dreaming in the paradisical green hills of KwazuluNatal.

Andrew (b.1942) studied at Durban Art School from 1957-59 and then apprenticed with Walsh Marais and Sammy Liebermann until establishing his own studio in Durban in 1961. In 1964 he travelled to Europe, where he met Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie and Michael Cardew. Staying on in Europe, he established a studio in Staufen, Germany in 1965, then taught at the Hamburg Academy of Art from 1966-68. He returned to Africa in 1968 and after travelling in Asia, meeting with Shoji Hamada, he established a new studio in the hills of Shongweni Kwazulu Natal in 1970.

Andrew works in the Japanese tradition inspired by the spectacular indigenous bush surrounding his home and workshop. He follows an inner somewhat Eastern philosophy. He is never separate from trees, birds and all pervading Zulu Culture. Andrew has however always worked inspired by a Japanese ethos  both in his meticulous method of working and in his use of minimalist brush strokes. He has recently been described as Natal’s Zulu Zen Potter! A poem written by a Japanese poet for the opening of his second exhibition in Tokyo sums up the affinity Japanese hearts have with his work.