Seth Cardew: Ceramics artist who produced lively, elegant plates and vases and ran his family's pottery in Cornwall

A multi-talented, kind man who appreciated the funny side of things

Seth Cardew

Seth Cardew, who has died aged 82, was a celebrated potter, musician and sculptor.

He was born at the Winchcombe Pottery in Greet, Gloucestershire to Mariel and Michael Cardew. His early life was fairly simple and primitive; home was a wooden hut painted green, and he was soon joined by his brother Cornelius, making their accommodation even snugger. In 1940, the family – now with three boys, after the arrival of Ennis – moved to Wenford Bridge, Cornwall.

Seth's father was a pioneering potter – a much admired pupil of Bernard Leach and his circle, founder members of the Studio Pottery movement. His younger brother Cornelius became a well-known composer, whose career was sadly ended by his early death in 1981. Ennis embarked upon a career in the merchant navy.

Seth's father left for West Africa in 1942 to run a ceramics project on the Gold Coast – and did not return until 1948. Therefore it fell to Seth's mother – herself a gifted painter – to steer a course for their three boys. She did so while holding down a teaching job and running their home and pottery, a former pub at Wenford Bridge on the River Camel in Cornwall.

Cleverly, Mariel realised the boys' musical gift – and in 1943 they were accepted by Canterbury Cathedral Choir school for a nominal fee. Furthermore, the school had been evacuated to St Blazey near Wenford Bridge. In 1945 the school was reinstated in Canterbury.

Seth, however, was not terribly happy during these two years, so Mariel moved him to Midhurst Grammar School in West Sussex at the age of 13, followed by Chelsea School of Art to study painting.

Seth's national service (1955-57) was spent in Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Afterwards, at Camberwell Art School, he studied sculpture under Karel Vogel, who became a personal friend, and whom Seth looked after when he was dying. He also fell in love with one of the college's life models, Jutta Zemke. They were married in 1960, and their first child, Aeschylus, was born that same year, which meant that Seth had to quickly set about earning a living.

His first job was at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios as a model maker and sculptor. He loved this time – the speed at which sets had to be got together, and the energy, humour and camaraderie of the team. Among the films he worked on was Cleopatra (1963).

In 1974, Seth left London with Jutta and their three children, Aeschelus, Ara and Gaea, to help his father run Wenford Bridge Pottery. For the next 31 years, he managed the pottery, seeing to the clay body, glazes, wood stacking and firing.

As a potter who enjoyed the vitality of brushwork, Seth saw the possibility of developing his own designs for a bird plate – depicting elegant birds with long legs, sometimes two on a plate looking back towards each other – for which he became celebrated. The lively brushwork was in cobalt blue or iron, on a zircon glaze, and proved very popular with collectors of studio pottery. Later he produced large vases with figurative paintings inspired by Antonio Canova's The Three Graces.

At Wenford Bridge, two potters wheels faced each other in the pub's former skittle alley. Next door, in the old brew house, great vats of slip stood on slate shelves with gourds beside them to stir and pour from. When two makers were at their wheels, conversations were often deep and also amusing.

Seth loved to tell stories illustrating ideas which appealed to him. This involved films – especially the Groucho brothers – opera and the Greek myths. With apprentices, he was illuminating on form, how to pull clay handles and the use of slips and glazes. He liked to finish in the pottery at 5.30pm and return home up the hill to make the most of his family life. His son Ara joined the pottery in the early 1980s.

It is thanks to Seth that Wenford Bridge kept going in Michael's later years and after his death. When he finally decided to close it down, he went to set up a small workshop for residential pottery courses, with his second wife, Roberta, at Masia Albadas, Spain, in 1983. Seth went on to edit Michael Cardew's autobiography, A Pioneer Potter, for publication in 1988.

Outside pottery, Seth kept up his natural enthusiasm for music: the clarinet, cornet, flugelhorn, euphonium and piano were his instruments. Thursday afternoons were devoted to ensemble playing of baroque music, with a variety of talented musicians. There were great jamming sessions, too, with his nephews Horace and Wally – sons of Cornelius – and Seth also played with the Saint Breward Silver Band, along with his sons Aeschylus and Ara.

Seth Cardew was a multi-talented, kind man who appreciated the funny side of things. He cannot always have found it easy working with his father, but he made the most of every situation, and believed in living life to the full: if the blackberries were ripe, he'd take off and pick them to make jelly. He will be missed by the many who knew him, and especially by his children, Gaea, Ara and Aeschylus, and his six grandchildren.

Seth Cardew, potter: born Greet, Gloucestershire 3 January 1934; married 1960 Jutta Zemke (died 1990, three children), second Roberta Pejic; died Cambridge, Wisconsin, US 2 February 2016.