Clarice Cliff Pottery
Welcome to our guide to Clarice Cliff pottery, with information about the life and work of Clarice Cliff, plus details of Clarice Cliff pottery for sale.
Clarice Cliff Pottery For Sale On Ebay
Clarice Cliff Guide Books
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Clarice Cliff: A Price Guide This book looks at how Clarice Cliff became so successful through great determination, her intuitive sense of colour and shape and an understanding of what sort of pottery the younger generation wanted in their new homes. This was coupled with her great ability to interpret the latest contemporary patterns and shapes from Europe and adapt the style for the more reserved British market. The popularity of her art deco classics has led to a large international collectors' market which has grown considerably over the last twenty years, with specialist auctions and exhibitions dedicated to her life and work which has proved so popular that the prices realised for certain rare and less well-known items has exceed £15,000. The main part of the book focuses on collecting Clarice Cliff pottery, highlighting the development of her patterns and shapes, alongside an extensive price guide that gives the collector full information about actual sales with detailed information on dates and prices realised at reputable auctions. |
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About Clarice Cliff
Clarice Cliff was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire, in 1899. She started working in the pottery industry at the age of just 13 as an apprentice enameller. In 1916 she started an apprenticeship as a lithographer at the Burslem factory of A.J.Wilkinson.
In the early 1920's her artistic ability was recognized and encouraged to develop further by her bosses at A.J.Wilkinson and in 1927 she was given her own studio at the Wilkinson's owned Newport Pottery, where she was given the task of decorating a large amount of plain whiteware pottery which had remained unsold. Many of these pieces had minor imperfections, so the bold colours and geometric designs that Clarice created were a perfect way to disguise these flaws.
The stylish new designs were given the name "Bizarre" and they proved to be hugely successful, with the Newport Pottery rapidly expanding to keep up with demand. Clarice soon had a large team of paintresses working under her direction and during the late 1920's and 1930's they produced huge volumes of pottery in a large range of shapes and patterns. This output continued until the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939, when wartime regulations stated that only plain white pottery could be produced. These restrictions remained in place until the 1950's and Clarice never again returned to her famous, brightly coloured, Art Deco style designs.
In 1940 Clarice married Colley Shorter, the owner of A.J Wilkinson's. Following his death in 1963, ownership of the factory passed to her and in 1964 she decided that it was time to retire, selling the factory to Midwinter's in August of that year. In October 1972, Clarice Cliff died at her home, Chetwynd House.