Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1931 Sudan

Died: 1996 Farnham, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1967

Other name/s: Siddig Nigoumi , Siddig El’Nigoumi , Siddiq El Nigoumi

Biography

Ceramicist Siddig el Nigoumi was born in Sudan on 1 January 1931. As a child, he received his education in Khartoum but spent his holidays in a rural region near the White Nile, where he enjoyed playing by water and using mud and clay to create various shapes and forms, as conventional toys were not available. With his friends, he discovered beautifully decorated storage pots buried in the sand, remnants of an abandoned settlement, which had a profound impact on his imagination. El Nigoumi worked as an Arabic calligrapher for two years at the Publications Bureau in Khartoum, the traditional forms and discipline of the technique instilling a strong sense of rhythm and design in his later work. He subsequently attended the School of Art in Khartoum, where he specialised in pottery and sculpture. In 1957, he moved to England to study at the Central School of Art. Returning to Khartoum in 1960, he taught at the National Art College. During this period, the majority of instructors were British, and they trained Sudanese students to craft western items such as coffee sets, teapots, and even casseroles — despite the fact that ovens were rarely used in local homes. El Nigoumi, however, urged his students to seek inspiration from their own traditions and arranged trips to the ethnographic museum in Khartoum, where they could study African pottery, baskets, weapons, and wood carving.

Feeling that Sudan offered limited prospects for an imaginative potter, he moved back to England with his wife and children in 1967. Settling in Farnham, Surrey, el Nigoumi discovered the possibilities of novel materials and techniques, integrating them with recollections of the Africa he had left behind. The shapes and imagery of his new country sparked his creative imagination and inspired his artistic pursuits, generating ‘unexpected and sometimes disturbing values'. Blending influences from European, Christian, and particularly Muslim art traditions flowing through Mecca, his work celebrated ‘things lost, forgotten or ignored through familiarity or neglect’ (Blackie 1989). El Nigoumi began teaching part-time at West Surrey School of Art and Design in Farnham, where one of his students was Kenyan-born ceramicist Magdalene Odundo, who later referred to him as the ‘Sudanese Banksy’ of ceramic art (Aberystwyth Arts Centre). El Nigoumi played a pivotal role in integrating African and Arab methods into British pottery, such as burnishing and carbonising rather than glazing, to attain the deep browns, blacks, and blues that characterised his work. El Nigoumi's pots were crafted through coiling and smoothing or by pressing clay slabs into plaster of Paris moulds. Some works were covered with a thin slip layer derived from Nile Valley clay, resulting in a vibrant orange-red colour. He signed his creations with a symbol of a scorpion, a reminder of his home in the desert. Nigoumi's burnishing method was both labour-intensive and extremely time-consuming, as it required repeating the process up to ten to 15 times while the clay hardened. He utilised his fingertips to polish the surface before allowing the pot to dry and adding any further decoration.

In the early 1970s, el Nigoumi primarily created reduction-fired stoneware, featuring decorations inspired by the powerful symbolic patterns of house ornamentation found in the Aswan region of Sudan. This house decorating tradition died out in the early 1970s when communities relocated, due to the construction of the Aswan Dam. Around 1978, he started working with red earthenware, decorated with etched and sgraffito designs, burnished to achieve a smooth, glossy surface. He introduced darker, contrasting shades by employing dark slip clay, which accentuated the effect of the scratched designs. He often decorated the dark brown surface with designs inspired by his homeland, including Arabic calligraphy, exemplified by his dish The Great Royal Wedding (1981, V&A collection). Like a number of el Nigoumi's pots, this dish also had the smoke-fired character of some traditional African pottery. Alongside a stylised Arabic inscription it also featured the form of a Union Jack, creating a totally original mixture of cultural forms to commemorate the royal wedding of Charles and Diana. In 1972 he was elected a member of the Craft Potters Association, and became a regular exhibitor in galleries in London and across the country; further recognition came in 1980 and 1981, when the Victoria and Albert Museum, London acquired several of his pieces for its collection. Siddig el Nigoumi died in Farnham, Surrey, England on 10 October 1996. A long-due retrospective exhibition was held at the British Craftsmen Potters Association, London in 2015. More recently, his work was featured alongside other studio potters, including Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and Walter Keeler in Crafted in Clay at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire (2023). In the UK public domain, his work is represented in the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, among other collections.

Related books

Alan Windsor, Siddig El Nigoumi. A Sudanese Potter in England (London: Lund Humphries, 2015)
Sebastian Blackie, ‘Siddig el Nigoumi: A Potter in Exile’, Ceramics Art and Perception, No. 113, July 2019
Paul Rice, British Studio Ceramics (Marlborough: Crowood Press, 2002)
Robert Fournier, Illustrated Dictionary of Practical Pottery (London: A & C Black, 2000)
Paul Scott, Painted Clay: Graphic Arts and the Ceramic Surface (London: A & C Black, 1991)
Khalid Al Mubarak, ‘Fine Art Made the Hard Way’, The Guardian, 28 October 1996, p. 113
John Pilgrim, ‘Letter: Obituary: Siddig El Nigoumi’, 14 November 1996, p. 15
Sebastian Blackie, ‘Siddig El Nigoumi’, Ceramics Monthly, Vol. 37, January 1989, p. 28
Rosemary Hill, ‘In-and out-of Africa’, Country Life, 22 May 1986, pp. 1416-1417
‘Artist’s Culture in art on Ceramics’, Reading Evening Post, 21 September 1979, p. 8
Elisabeth Cameron and Phillipa Lewis, Potters on Pottery (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976)

Public collections

Related organisations

Central School of Arts (student)
Craftsmen Potters Association (member)
Khartoum School of Art (student)
National Art College, Khartoum (teacher)
West Surrey College of Art and Design (now the University for the Creative Arts), Farnham (teacher)

Selected exhibitions

Crafted in Clay, Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire (2023)
Retrospective Exhibition, British Craftsmen Potters Association, London (2015)
Colours of the Earth: A British Council Exhibition (1991)
The Artist as Traveller, Bolton Museum, Lancashire (1990)
Out of Clay, City Art Gallery, Manchester (1988)
Anniversary Exhibition, New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham (1986)
Siddig El'Nigoumi, Aberystwyth Arts Centre (1984)
Ceramics by Siddig el Nigoumi; jewellery by Alastair Huddart, New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham (1984)
Burnished Pots by Siddig el Nigoumi, Bohun Gallery, Henley (1982)
Craftsmen Potters Association (1980)
Siddig el Nigoumi, Burnished Dishes, Bohun Gallery, Henley (1979)
Group Exhibition, New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham (1979)
Catharine Alexander, Kathleen Hale and Siddig El'Nigoumi (1976)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Siddig el Nigoumi ]