Michael Cardew, born in 1901, was a British potter trained in Cornwall, southwest England. He apprenticed at Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada's pottery studio. He later entered the Colonial Service, working first in Ghana in 1942 at the Achimota School, and later in Nigeria as Pottery Officer. At the Abuja Pottery Training Centre, he worked alongside British and Nigerian potters, combining Gwari pottery-making techniques with British glazing and wheel-throwing. Among his students were Danlami Aliyu and Ladi Kwali, the latter of whom fused Gwari and British traditions in her work.

In some of these ceramics we see Cardew's technique of etching designs after applying the slip, an interest he developed while at Leach Pottery in the 1920s based on 17th century English slipware tradition.