Season 4 October 2012 — June 2013 Mid-century Modern

AUSTRALIAN POTTERY A T B E M B O K A

F E A T U R E S O F M O D E R N I S T 1956 Arts Festival CERAMICS Functional stoneware and the sented at the exhibition, only now called mid-century mod-  Natural shapes philosophies of Bernard Harold Hughan was an expo- ernism - developments in ar-  Simplicity of Leach dominated most of the nent of stoneware at that chitecture and design in design decade”, wrote Frances Mor- time, while NSW was repre- Europe from around 1933 to  Bright colours gan of the 1960s in Pottery in 1965 that found fertile Australia, 40/3, Sep 2001. ground in post-war Mel-  Abstract decoration This may have been true of bourne. In housing, it re- Sydney, but Melbourne re- sulted in buildings with open  Diversity mained an important centre floor plans and large areas of  Playfulness for earthenware until the late glass; in interior decoration, 1960s. in clean, unembellished lines  Eclecticism Reg Preston (1917-2000). and neutral or primary col- Practitioners bridging the war Bowl. Oct 1956 ours. included John Barnard Knight, who ran the ceramics By 1956, the year of the Mel- sented by Ivan Englund, classes at Melbourne Techni- bourne Olympic Games, the Mollie Douglas, Ivan cal College and produced a great mass of new housing McMeekin and Peter Rush- domestic line under the label was lighter and simpler, and forth, all converts to Leach’s ‘Janet Gray’, Klytie Pate, Eric furnishing these homes with philosophies. INSIDE: Juckert and Allan Lowe. functional and decorative Earthenware lends itself to ware provided a ready market An Arts Festival was held in the brighter colours of com- for semi-commercial and 1956 Arts Festival 1 conjunction with the Mel- mercial glazes and to indus- commercial potteries, as- bourne Olympic Games in trial methods of production. sisted by post-war barriers to 1956. Of the twelve ceramic The Boyd family 1 These are features of what is imported ceramics. artists from Victoria repre-

Sydney potteries 2

Melbourne potteries 2 the Boyd Family

“The Green Wedge” 2 The Boyd family was influen- Pottery, which he set up while tial in setting new more mod- studying sculpture at the East ernist tastes, with the Arthur Sydney Technical College, be- Market opportunities 3 Merric Boyd Pottery at Mur- fore returning to Melbourne in rumbeena producing simple, 1951 and setting up his own A national idiom 3 brightly-coloured wares from Guy Boyd Pottery there. Arthur Boyd (1920-1999) and John 1944-1958. Arthur’s brother Perceval (1923-2000). Guy left a similar legacy in Four ramekins. 1950s Ellis Ceramics 4 Sydney with the Martin Boyd P a g e 2 M i d - century Modern

Sydney Potteries

In Sydney, the Martin Boyd Pottery Braemore Pottery to produce a line went on to become a beacon of mod- of modernist vases under the name ernism, with large Sydney companies Braemore-Carstens. like Bakewells, Delamere, Florenz, In a second wave of emigration to Kalmar, MCP and Pates producing Sydney in the late 1960s, Vladimir more florid and embellished designs. Tichy from Czechoslovakia joined The work of smaller ventures like the forces with Rudolf Dybka from Aus- Fisher Studio also stand out. John tria to make brightly coloured earth- Fisher had emigrated from Czecho- enware, murals and ceramic sculp- slovakia in 1950 and clearly knew tures at Studio Dybka Tichy in Pa- something of the ‘keramik der 50er ramatta. Jo Sartori, the studio man- Jahre’ being made in Europe after Martin Boyd Pottery (1948-1963). ager, says that the orange and red Demitass cups and saucers the war. glazes developed there were new to In the early 1960s, the German com- Australia and very difficult to control. pany Carstens licenced the Sydney

“Hand-thrown Melbourne Potteries and modernist in ney. Premier Potteries Pre- expanding to Gembrook in style, Dyson ston (Remued), itself a fairly 1958. Hand-thrown and mod- Studio Pottery small operation, closed at the ernist in style, Dyson Studio end of 1955. This left room Pottery and Martin Boyd Pot- and Martin for smaller semi-commercial tery were both represented in operations. the 1956 Arts Festival. Hen- Boyd Pottery ning Rathjen, another Mel- Dyson Studio. Two bowls. 1950s June Dyson, who studied pot- bourne Technical College stu- were both tery under Klytie Pate at the dent, established himself in Melbourne Technical College represented in In Melbourne, there were Caulfield in 1947 where he was one of the most success- fewer commercial potteries made modernist slipcast the 1956 Arts ful, setting up a studio at producing ceramics in the ware in black or neutral col- Black Rock in 1945 and Festival ” post-war period than in Syd- ours.

‘The Green Wedge’

On the outskirts of Mel- exhibiting and selling their It wasn’t until the late bourne, Eltham and War- wares opened the Potters’ 1960s that production by Prototype jug or the SYLHA randyte fostered new commu- Cottage. the group changed from range. 1950s nities of artists and studio earthenware to stoneware. The founding members were potters. Tom Sanders, like his Artur Halpern, Reg Preston, Arthur and Sylvia Halpern friend Guy Boyd returning to Phyl Dunn, Gus McLaren and had ventured early in the Melbourne after studying Charles Wilton. Sylvia post-war years into com- sculpture in Sydney, could not Halpern, Kate Janeba and mercial methods of pro- make enough named ash- Elsa Ardern joined the group duction with their SYLHA trays to supply demand. In in 1961 and Peter Laycock, range and continued mak- 1958 at Warrandyte a group from nearby Dunmoochin in ing work under this label until of potters looking for ways of Cottles Bridge, in 1969. 1975. P a g e 3 S e a s o n 4

Market opportunities

a commercial enterprise, moving to factory premises, employing a larger number of people, including visual arts students, looking outside Austra- lia for new markets, but still main- taining tight control over design. By contrast, the 1960s saw the emergence of large commercial pot- teries run by businessmen with no technical skills themselves, an em- ploying largely women. These in- Ellis Ceramics. Ashtray. 1950s-1960s Gunda. Vase. 1950s-1960s cluded the Ray Cook and Raynham potteries and Hanstan.

Into this mix came two significant ernist European influences as well as new potteries. Dasa and Milda Kra- adapting their designs eclectically to “Both Ellis and tochvil, emigrants from Czechoslova- their new country. kia. They headed for Melbourne in Gunda found a In Adelaide another Latvian emi- 1951 as soon as they had completed grant, Maigonis Daga, produced ready market in their obligatory two years of work ex- work from 1956-1966 in a similar perience in NSW, and set up a back- style to Gunda, so much so that for a Melbourne for yard pottery in Abbotsford in 1953. time it was thought the two studios work featuring Three years later, Gundars Lusis, a were related. Instead, it was an inter- young Latvian migrant, set up the esting example of two fellow country- traditional and Gunda pottery in the backyard of his men sharing the same West German parent’s home in Camberwell. Both influences. modernist European potteries found a ready market for Gunda remained the work of largely influences” work featuring traditional and mod- one person. Ellis went on to become

Idea of a national idiom

In the guide to the 1956 Arts (The Arts Festival of the Olym- est to a na- Festival Harold Hughan pic Games Melburne, 1956, tional idiom Carl Cooper. Dish. 1960 speculated that “the post-war p.37). It is clearer now that can be found in influx to this country of large the shift in style after the war work decorated numbers of former European was part of a more general with Aboriginal nationals with their own cul- trend towards modernism re- designs and tures, many of them fine flected in the work of a themes. craftsmen in their own media, younger generation of Austra- will doubtless have its influ- lians selling their work in the ence and make its own contri- same progressive market butions to what in time may place as migrant craftsmen become a national idiom” and women. Perhaps the clos- AUSTRALIAN Over the last ten years, we have been adding to our POTTERY AT BEMBOKA own collection of contemporary Australian ceramics by buying work on the secondary market. The result 1 Oliver street is an eclectic mix of exhibition pieces and produc- Bemboka, NSW, 2550 tion ware made in the last half century, displayed in Phone: 02 64930491 a contemporary house and gallery setting with E-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.australianpotteryatbemboka.com.au mountain views. All the pieces are for sale from the gallery or online.

Ellis Ceramics/Veronica Moriarty

Australian public of the immediate metric forms and clean, even severe post World War II period. We’ve seen lines, also influenced Ellis Ceramics. it all before, but the viewer of the The movement sought to create eco- 1950s hadn’t. The cynical amongst nomically ‘viable’ designs, suitable to us might now regard the figures as be used in everyday living and able to kitsch, but take that step back and be mass-produced. European pottery what appears to be an inherent lack of the period 1950s -1970s bore the of artistic talent and sophistication is stamp of this bold optimistic and exactly the opposite: boldness and futuristic style in its bright colours courage in taking up new styles. Aus- and exciting lines and the Kratochvils tralia in the 1950s might have been drew on this lineage. They took it “The mainstay of the Ellis Ceramics old fashioned and mono-cultural, but further, however, and adapted it to pottery was a line called Ellis figures and homewares were reflect their time in their new country. “Harvestware”- attractive and distinc- anything but, a shock to the system Many people are starting to again tive grey-green glazed slip-cast terra- that, surprisingly, sold incredibly well. appreciate the beauty of Ellis ceram- cotta tablewares that featured a What made Ellis Ceramics so distinc- ics – not just as part of the craze for decorative technique known as tive? The Kratochvils drew much of all things “Retro”, but as genuinely “sgraffito” where designs were hand- their inspiration from two apparently beautiful artwork. “ etched into the surface to reveal the diametrically opposed influences: clay underneath. Extract from an article published by traditional and modernist art, but Veronica Moriarty in 2009. Another popular range of tablewares surprisingly, these managed to work featured, primarily, a bright orange or together in harmony, not conflict, to yellow glaze set off by a heavily tex- create something genuinely new and tured black glaze with a lava-like unique. surface. Not only did numerous gal- The legacy of European folk art is leries and department stores, includ- most clear in Ellis animal figures: ing the Myer chain, take up Ellis Ce- naive to the point of abstraction with ramics, but they received contracts their surfaces decorated with simple for their pottery from America and repeated geometric patterns, not Japan. through lack of talent, but in a delib- By the mid 1960s the pottery had erate attempt to echo a familiar folk expanded to produce a wide range of tradition. Miloslav’s training as a homewares with over three hundred marionette maker is also evident in different numbered designs, as well the simplicity, yet potency and charm as a range of human and animal of the modelling of these simple fig- figures. ures. It’s difficult for the 21st century Ironically the Bauhaus movement of viewer to fully appreciate the impact art and design, characterised by geo- these figures would have had on the