Photo courtesy of the Les Manning Estate.
Les Manning was born in Provost, Alberta and studied ceramics at the Alberta College of Art (now the Alberta University of the Arts) until 1966. After working with former ceramics instructor, Walter Doohan, and potter John Porter, Manning taught at the Calgary Allied Arts Centre (1968–69) and later Manning Ceramics (1969–74), a studio through which he ran ceramic classes. He taught at the Banff Centre starting in 1971 and developed the Banff Centre’s renowned international ceramics artist-in-residence program from 1974–1994. In 1998 he was the artist-in-residence at Medalta in Medicine Hat, where he would return later to build a state-of-the-art ceramics studio facility that is now the Shaw International Centre for Contemporary Ceramics, and part of the extensive industrial ceramics museum, historical collection from several Medicine Hat potteries, and ceramic artist residency and gallery facility where he would stay to become the artistic director. Manning worked tirelessly to promote ceramics in Canada and internationally for three decades, notably acting in various capacities at the Alberta Potters’ Association, Canadian Craft Council, Alberta Crafts Council, Canadian Clay Conference ’84, ’88 Winter Olympic Cultural Organization Arts Festival, and the International Academy of Ceramics.