Women Ceramic Designers of the Twentieth Century
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Ceramics Coffee service by Lucie Rie from c1960 with manganese Susie Cooper tureen pattern 2222, showing how the lid could become and white glazes. a serving dish when turned upside down. Women ceramic designers of the twentieth century Clarice Cliff, Susie Cooper, Daisy Makeig-Jones & Dame Lucie Rie With four extra pages of Price Guides by Zita Thornton Traditionally women have always had a role in the SUSIE COOPER potteries as painters but some women went on to Susie Cooper was a contemporary of Clarice Cliff but her designs were very different. Apart from a brief period when her work become designers in their own right. I have embraced bright, abstract cubist patterns, her designs displayed chosen just four women designers who brought elegant, pastel patterns, many of them floral, on traditional shapes. innovation to twentieth century ceramic design. They appealed to customers of John Lewis for whom she produced an exclusive line featuring banded patterns and polka dots. They also appealed to Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson who ordered CLARICE CLIFF tableware in the delicate floral ‘Dresden Spray’ pattern, a design There can be few who have not heard of Clarice Cliff and most can which was popular for 25 years. identify the dazzling, bold style of her ‘Bizarre’ ware. However, Susie Cooper had a long career from 1922 until 1980. At an age prices for these pieces have escalated beyond the purses of most of when most people have been retired for several years, she was still us, but examples from the late 1930s, after the end of ‘Bizarre’ era, working and was awarded the Order of The British Empire in recog- still display her talent for innovation and remain more affordable. nition of her services to British ceramic design. She joined the Clarice Cliff was a shy girl with a taste for the flamboyant. She Staffordshire pottery A.E Gray on a work placement and was soon joined the A.J.Wilkinson pottery, run by Colley Shorter in 1916 and given her own mark. However, Susie had ambitions of her own and within 6 years had been promoted as an apprentice modeller where established a ceramic decorating company in 1929. However, she she mostly produced figurines. She was also entrusted with wanted more control over the design of shapes too and set up close decorating the prestigious Art Pottery where she developed a unique links with Wood & Sons, moving into Crown Works owned by talent. In 1927 Shorter bought the Newport Pottery along with a them. Her work encompassed subtle florals, pop art and humorous number of mediocre pots. Clarice had the idea of covering their animal prints. Her diverse patterns covered a variety of items from defects with bold painting and from this her ‘Bizarre range’ was tableware to ornamental vases and lamp bases. She also produced born. Within a year she was designing shapes more suited to the individual ‘studio pieces’, models and wall masks. unconventional patterns of ‘Bizarre’ and the later ‘Fantasque’ range. But perhaps her popularity is down to the fact that, not only were ‘Conical’ by name and conical by nature their success soon resulted her pieces stylish but they could be relied upon to be efficient. Her in the entire production of the Newport factory being turned over to teapots poured well and her cups were easy to handle. They were their trail-blazing shapes and unique decoration. In 1930 Clarice also affordable. When the demand for hand-painted pieces became turned again to designing figurines but even these were different and too great to handle she adapted her designs as transfer prints. These innovative, being flat sided Jazz Age dancers and musicians, are equally desirable. In the 1950s she phased out earthenware and intended primarily as table decorations. Like her wall masks, these moved into bone china mass producing new shapes and patterns for are highly sought after. In the same year she was made Art Director tableware. Her company was amalgamated into the Wedgwood of the Newport Pottery, the first time a woman had ever held such a group in 1966 but she wasn’t happy working for a large group so position in The Potteries. resigned, working solely on a freelance basis. However, by the late 1930s the flamboyant excesses of her designs did not suit the mood of a population rocked by the death of one DAISY MAKEIG-JONES king and the abdication of another. Clarice toned down her designs Daisy Makeig-Jones’ ‘Fairyland Lustre’ designs that were produced yet lost none of her innovation. New ranges featured natural textures by Wedgwood, were as over-the-top and unusual as Clarice Cliff’s such as ‘Corncob’ and ‘Raffia’ or were based on natural shapes, ‘Bizarre’ range, but there the similarity ends. such as ‘Nautilus’. Shapes may have been more conventional but Initially taken on at Wedgwood as a trainee painter in 1909, she then their style certainly was not. became a tableware designer. Her first ‘Fairyland Lustre’ range was Post war austerity was not suited to the vibrant Cliff colours. A team introduced by Wedgwood in 1915 and expressed her fascination of ‘old Bizarre girls’ was assembled to produce new ranges with fairy notions. Plaques, plates, vases and bowls had names such including her popular Crocus, in muted colours but there was no as Ghostly Wood, White Pagodas, Bubbles, Stuff That Dreams Are new experimentation. Made Of and Willow Fairyland. They were linked by their ANTIQUES INFO - January/February 07 Ceramics decoration which made striking use of lustres and bright, underglaze, powder colours. These richly lustred pieces gave a fantastic glimpse of an exotic world, where imps and fairies played amongst bizarre trees hung with cobwebs and crossed wooden bridges over deep blue rivers, Clarice Cliff Pine Grove cruet set of conical where waterfalls shimmered and endless form, salt, pepper and mustard pot with lid, stairs reached up to floating cities. Flowers together with a Crocus pattern pin tray. grew everywhere from pale pearl tints to Image Courtesy of Bonhams. 1970s Lucie Rie elliptical stoneware bowl. deep flame, ruby and violet. Early examples used soft and harmonious lustre colours but a later range ‘Flame Fairyland’ used striking primary colours. Wedgwood was no stranger to lustre techniques nor was Daisy Makeig-Jones, for in 1914 she had designed ten Ordinary lustre pieces. These had a rich background colour, and metallic designs featuring dragons, butterflies, birds, fish, fruit and small animals. Although Daisy designed other Clarice Cliff footed bowl decorated with the ranges for Wedgwood including the Celtic Fairyland lustre ‘Imperial bowl’ by Daisy Gayday Pattern. Image Courtesy of range inspired by motifs from The Book Of Makeig Jones, c1920s. The design includes Bonhams. Kells and also nursery ware, she made lustre Thumbelina surrounded by Fairytale ware her niche and her Fairyland and characters. Sold at Sotheby’s in April 2006 for Ordinary lustres brought considerable £3,840 including buyer’s premium. success to the Wedgwood company. However, after the Wall Street crash, the popularity of lustre ware declined and in 1931 Makeig-Jones left the firm. DAME LUCIE RIE Unlike the other designers, Lucie Rie did not start out as a painter for an established company. She was already a potter in Vienna where she was born. In 1938 Lucie Clarice Cliff Crocus pattern hors d'ouvre Rie settled in London and established a dish, c1930. Image Courtesy of Bonhams. studio. Initially she supported herself by producing pottery buttons and jewellery before focusing on handmade pieces of Susie Cooper teapot pattern 1417 and a cylin- drical studio vase with incised abstract motifs. studio pottery that demonstrate the influence Image Courtesy of Bonhams. of the great studio potter Bernard Leach. Lucie brought with her a great knowledge of glazes. Her decorative effects are not produced by painting but by the use of coloured glazes which she bands on top of each other for great depth, or which drip randomly down the sides of the vessel, as well as by the introduction of texture. Her range is enormous, from small, delicate pots flaring from a small foot or rising with a slender neck, to chunkier pieces with pitted glazes and incised decoration. She worked in stoneware and porcelain. In 1946 she was joined by the potter Hans Coper who worked with her on some domestic wares. Together they produced tea and coffee sets for Liberty’s and Heal’s. Lucie Rie was widely exhibited, first in 1949, and admired. She was awarded both an OBE and CBE and in 1991 was made a Dame. She died just over 10 years ago in 1995 aged 93 Daisy Makeig Jones Fairyland Lustre vase Daisy Makeig Jones tall vase with cover but was still working even in her eighties. for Wedgwood in the Candlemas pattern. incorporating the Jewelled Trees design. Image Courtesy of Bonhams. Image Courtesy of Bonhams. ANTIQUES INFO - January/February 07 43 Ceramics Daisy Makeig-Jones10 Dame Lucie Rie 1 6 1 6 Dame Lucie Rie stoneware Wedgwood Flame Fairyland Dame Lucie Rie, Art Pottery, Wedgwood Fairyland lustre boat and saucer in off white lustre punch bowl, interior in waisted side handled pouring bowl designed by Daisy glaze, iron brown fleck and Woodland Bridge pattern, vessel and lid, (chip to rim) Makeig-Jones. Phillips, rim, impressed LR seal to Z5360, exterior in Poplar brown glazed exterior and Scotland. Nov 00. HP: underside. Rosebery’s, Trees pattern, Z4968, four white glazed interior, base gilded monograms ‘MJ’ to £2,400. ABP: £2,823. London. Mar 04. HP: £1,050. ABP: £1,235. with cypher signature, 8.5in. interior, painted & printed Denhams, Warnham, Sussex.