By Thomas G. Turnquist
Taken from the Journal of the American Art Pottery Association, March-April; Vol IX No 2.
John "Jack" Leland Pharo was a lithographer and painter before embarking on a career in ceramics in the late 1930s. Born in 1902 in Belpe, Kansas, he was an important and influential participant in the arena of American crafts generally and in clay specifically.

Jack Pharo was employed by the U.S. Post Office while launching his career in fine arts. He left the Post Office in 1957. Pharo's early background included several years' of studying painting, figure sketching, and lithography. His teachers and mentors included William Dickerson, an original associate of thePrairie Print Makers and one of Pharo's closest friends, B.J. Olson Nordfeldt, a much-listed and venerated painter, and Kansas native E. Bruce Moore, a well-known sculptor. Another important influence was Maija Grotell.
According to William Dickerson's wife Betty, Pharo and Grotell became good, solid friends and exchanged much technical information.

Pharo joined the Wichita Art Association in the 1930s as a volunteer. He became one of the Assocation's ceramic instructors in 1947. The Association's first full-time ceramics instructor --from 1947 to 1949 -- was Susan Hanly Peterson, who had studied at Mills College. In 1949 Pharo was named head of the ceramics department, a position he held or 26 years. Pharo was a self-taught potter who made his own tools, built his own kilns and developed his own glazes. He would literally dig clay with a shovel and return to his studio with bags full of his earthen treasure. He reconstructed an old washing machine to mix clay bodies. The mixed clays were then strained by running wet clay through a screen into a crock. He never used clays that were purchased or processed by someone else. Pharo maintained total control of his pottery production process.

His vessel forms show -- to some degree -- an influence of classic Chinese ceramicis. Surface treatments, while mostly abstract, can be considered derivative of ancient Egyptian representational styles. Pharo also has made ceramic sculpture.

He threw his work on one pottery wheel and then shifted the piece to a second wheel to be trimmed and decorated. Using a large needle secured to a dowel, he would cut or sketch a design onto the surface of a piece as he rotated it on the wheel. Pharo was not known to do one-fire pieces; he sometimes fired three or four times depending on the surface decoration and glaze treatment.

During his long pottery career he interfaced with a number of the most influential people in American ceramics. These included Antonio Prieto, F. Carlton Ball, Sheldon Carye, and Maija Grotell, most of whom he came to know through their participation in workshops and seminars held at the Wichita Art Association. He also spent time with British potter Bernard Leach, hosting a workshop for him min 1960 at the Art Association. Pharo treasured his meetings with Leach.

In a teaching career that spanned four decades, he generously shared his extensive knowledge of painting, sculpture, and ceramics. Literally hundreds of students studied with Pharo during his tenure at the Wichita Art Association. Classes in pottery throwing, ceramics and sculpture were held in the workshop/studio. Morning and evening hours were available for study in addition to Saturday classes for children. Scholarships were offered to qualified students.

Angelo Garzio comments that
"...although (he was) overworked and underpaid, I never heard him allude to this condition nor heard any complaints coming from his lips. He cheerfully accepted these conditions because of his love in teaching youngsters.....he (was) delighted to share his expertise in clay."

Pharo must be given credit for being an important catalyst in the development of the Wichita National Decorative Arts Show sponsored by the Wichita Art Association. These shows, which began in 1946, became a powerful venue for promoting American crafts. He himself participated in virtually all of the Wichita Nationals from 1948 through 1970. He won an honorable mention in 1962 for a stoneware plate; Otto Heino is listed as having won second prize that year for a bowl. Indeed, a list of participants in the Wichita Nationals--both exhibitors and judges -- reads like a Who's Who of American studio potters.

Pharo also exhibited at the 19th Annual Invitational Show at Scripps College. Pharo retired from the Wichita Art Association in 1973 and was awarded its Medal of Honor. He summed up his view of clay this way: "Real satisfaction comes from throwing a ball of clay, opening it to form a bowl, vase, or bottle, anything good and beautifiul and useful. There is a thrill in creating art objects anyone can afford to own."

Jack Pharo died at the age of 88 in July, 1991. His legacy was substantial. He used his life to create beautiful objects, to teach, and to elevate the public's awareness of art and craft. Jane Eby, director of the Wichita Center for the Arts, said this about Pharo:"He was interested in good form and in developing interesting decorations and glazes. He needs to be remembered as somebody who spent all his creative energy with the students of the Art Association."

On the secondary market, Pharo's pots seem to turn up more readily in the Kansas-Iowa area, a fact reinforcing the Pharo family's assertion that he used no sales venues other than those connected with the Wichita Art Association. He made bowls, cups, plates, pitchers, bottles, lidded jars, casseroles, wind bells, vases and sculptures. All of his work is signed "PHARO" in block capital letters. Some of his work is dated as well.


Article reproduced here with permission of the author.