Designers Directory

In 1897 Staffordshire pottery manufacturers James Macintyre & Co. Ltd employed 24-year-old William Moorcroft as a designer, and within a year he was put in full charge of the company's art pottery studio. Early in his employment at Macintyre's, William Moorcroft created designs for the company's Aurelian Ware range of high-Victorian pottery, which had transfer-printed and enamelled decoration in bold red, blue and gold colours. Moorcroft developed highly lustred glazes and used oriental shapes and decorations. Some of his techniques were closely guarded trade secrets.

He then developed his famous Florian Ware, with heavy slip and a translucent glaze which produces brilliance of colour.^[3] Florian Ware was influenced by art nouveau. It was decorated entirely by hand, with the design outlined in trailed slip using a technique known as tubelining. Florian Ware was a great success and won him a gold medal at the World's fair, the St. Louis International Exhibition in 1904. Unusually at that time, he adopted the practice of signing his name, or his initials, on nearly all the pottery he designed, the production of which he personally oversaw. In due course the extent to which his success had overshadowed Macintyre's other manufacturing activities resulted in resentment on the part of his employers, culminating in their decision in 1912 to close down his studio.

In 1913, William Moorcroft then set up his own factory at Cobridge with staff from Macintyres, and backed by a financial arrangement with Liberty & Co of London, The business succeeded. Much of the output was sold through Liberty & Co.^[4] and Tiffany in New York City. In 1928 Queen Mary made him "Potter to the Queen" through a Royal Warrant, which was stamped on the pottery. His son, Walter joined the company when he was twenty, and took over the management of the pottery in 1945 just before William's death.

Arthur Berridge was born in Leicester in 1902. After leaving school, he spent 4 years studying at Leicester College of Art and then Goldsmith’s College in London, where he graduated as an art teacher in 1924.

Originally Arthur worked as an artist under his paternal name of Smith, but he later considered his mother’s name of Berridge to be more suitable as an artist’s surname. His artistic career began in the early 1930’s, encouraged by his wife, Helena, who he married in 1930. He set up a studio at his house in Thurlaston Lane, where he sculpted in local stone and painted in oil.

His sculptures are ‘abstract’ not representations of natural objects, but he was strongly influenced by nature and the natural processes and principles of growth and structure. In his art, Arthur tried to simplify nature and figural forms by stripping back to the fundamentals of structure that came from plant or animal life. He also took the concepts of sculpture into his paintings.

Arthur did not attempt to exhibit any work until the early 1950’s, twenty years after he started producing artwork. He initially had problems in persuading galleries to show his material. He wrote to (Sir) Herbert Read at Stonegrave, York. In a letter dated 14^th September 1951, Read refers to a photograph of a sculpture that he would have liked to have included in his “Little Penguin” book on modern art but it had been published earlier that year, so nothing could be done.

Initially, Arthur Berridge exhibited under his paternal name of Smith at the National Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers and Potters in the Royal Institute Galleries, where his work received a sensational response – where his style was considered, “…all his own… and his treatment is unconventional to the point of puzzling the uninitiated spectator…”.

In the autumn of 1953, he had a one man exhibition of his paintings and sculptures at the Beaux Arts Gallery in Bruton Street, London, under the sponsorship of Mrs Helen Lessore, the latter considering ‘his work deserved to be represented in the Tate Gallery’. Arthur received a letter from the art critic, David Sylvester, written on Christmas day, commenting on how much he had enjoyed the exhibition. The Beauxs Art Exhibition was later re-shown at the Midlands Group of Artists Gallery, 38 Bridlesmith Gate, Nottingham, between 30^th January – 20^th February 1954, where a total of 9 sculptures and 21 paintings were exhibited.

In 1955 he exhibited at the 3 Groups exhibition, which compromised the Midland Group of Artists, Twenty Five Group, Birmingham and the Wintringham Group, Grimsby. The exhibition showed at different localities throughout the Midlands during the year and included Birmingham, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Mansfield and Kidderminster.

During the 1950’s Arthur was on the fringes of numerous art circles and was acquainted with such well known artists, sculptors and potters as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Bernard Leach.

Arthur Berridge died in 1957 aged 55.

John Ward was born in London in 1938, and is regarded as one of the most important modern British potters. He first worked as a cameraman for the BBC and subsequently took a ceramics course at East Ham Technical College in London, before attending the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts where he studied under the tutelage of Hans Coper and Lucie Rie. He established his first workshop in London in 1971, and spent several years as a part-time potter and teacher. He later moved to Pembrokeshire, West Wales in 1979 and focused entirely on making ceramics.

Ward’s pottery draws influence from a number of ancient and modern sources. He refers to the forms of ancient Chinese and Egyptian pre-glaze pottery and early Cypriot and Persian bowls, as well as the work of Coper, Rie and Ian Godfrey in creating his sculptural stoneware vessels. They are hand-built with flattened coils of clay and pinched bases, and the result is sometimes altered at the leather-hard stage by cutting and rejoining pieces to produce ridges and grooves between curving surfaces. They are then scraped and partly buffed with a stone, matt glazed by a combination of pouring, spraying and painting, and then usually fired twice in an electric kiln. His work is distinguished for its simple yet sometimes complex structures, often featuring abstract and geometric decoration. Ward has said,

“There is something compelling about the making of pots, regardless of function, which keeps me within the particular sphere; they are the focus of some many interests and associations. My aim is to make pots which have simple forms with integral decoration and aspects which can interact with the environment in interesting ways; to try and express a balance between these dynamic qualities and a sense of stillness or containment. Form above all, but expressed through light and colour. It is not surprising that the green, blue and ochre glazes have properties similar to some of the surface colours and textures of rocks and pebbles where I am living. Being near the sea has probably had an effect on the banded decoration I use, either reflecting the movement of water and waves or the dips and folds of the strata revealed in cliff faces. This in turn has affected form.’’

He is represented by many important public collections, including the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), Museum für Gestaltung (Zurich), National Museum of Wales (Cardiff), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London).