Clarice Cliff

Clarice Cliff
b. Jan 20 1899  d. Oct 23 1972
 

Clarice Cliff - Ceramic designer born in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent.

She is regarded as one of the most influential ceramics artists of the 20th Century. She became the first female art director in the pottery industry. Her big bold and bright patterns featuring slabs of colour and innovative art deco shapes were nicknamed 'happy china'. Her most famous range was Bizarre ware.

At the age of 13 she started working in the potteries. She studied at the Burslem School of Art in the evenings.

Her first job was as a gilder, and once she had mastered this she changed jobs to learn freehand painting

Cliff developed a simple patterns of triangles, vividly coloured in a style that was to become known as 'Original Bizarre'. To the surprise of the company's salesmen, this was immediately popular. She was provided with her own studio and another paintress to assist, but this rapidly expanded to a team of around 70 young painters, mainly women but four boys - they hand painted the wares under her direction.

Between 1928 and 1934 she evolved a range called Fantasque which featured cottages and trees, and then many Art Deco inspired patterns. These have proven particularly collectible nowadays.

In 1930 she was appointed Art Director to Newport Pottery and A. J. Wilkinson's, the two adjoining factories that produced her wares. Her work involved spending more time with the factory owner Colley Shorter, and this gradually developed into an affair, conducted in secrecy. In 1940, after the death of Ann Shorter, Colley's wife, they married.

She died in 1972, the year that Brighton Museum staged a Clarice Cliff exhibition. Clarice Cliff was buried in Tunstall cemetery.