Len Castle

New Zealand potter (1924–2011)

Leonard Ramsay Castle (23 December 1924 – 29 September 2011) was a New Zealand potter.

Born in Auckland on 23 December 1924, Castle was educated at Mount Albert Grammar School. He went on to study at Auckland University College, graduating Bachelor of Science in 1947, and trained as a secondary school teacher at Auckland Teachers' Training College. Castle began making his first pottery in 1947 and took night classes with Robert Nettleton Field at Avondale College, Auckland. In the early 1960s, Castle had an architecturally designed house built in the bush of the Waitākere Ranges at 20 Tawini Road, Titirangi, with a kiln and rail system out the back, and a low basement which allowed pottery to be exhibited. Turning room for tour buses was provided in the street outside. The Boyes family, which bought the house, demolished the kiln; however, the bricks from it form the paving round the lower part of the house, and shards from discarded pottery works can still be found amongst the clay soil of the bush behind. Castle studied pottery in Japan, Korea and China in 1966–67. He named Shoji Hamada as one of his influences. Castle built a new house in South Titirangi with a larger kiln and even more extensive railway to serve it in 1972–73, which is still operating. In 1989, along with a number of other New Zealand ceramic and glass artists, he was commissioned to supply work for the exhibition Treasures of the Underworld for the New Zealand pavilion at the World Expo at Seville in 1991. This work is now in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Castle died on 29 September 2011.

In the 1986 Queen's Birthday Honours, Castle was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to pottery. Four years later, he was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. In 2009, he declined redesignation as a Knight Companion when the New Zealand government restored titular honours. In 2003, Castle received an Icon award from the New Zealand Arts Foundation. The book Len Castle: Potter, published by Ron Sang Publishing, won a 2003 Montana New Zealand Book Award for non fiction. Six years later, Lopdell House Gallery's Making the Molecules Dance won the Montana New Zealand Book Award for best illustrative non fiction.