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- Title of Abstract:
Marketing Inter-War Studio Pottery: Lessons from History (Ref #113)
- Date:
- 26-09-2006 12:22:11
- Status:
-
Accepted with revisions
- Rating:
- 6
-
Details:
- The objective of the research is to document and interpret the wide range of exhibiting and promotional strategies employed by studio potters in Britain in the inter-war period (1918-1939). The main focus is the pioneering work of William Staite Murray, Shoji Hamada, Bernard Leach, Reginald Wells, the Vyses, Michael Cardew, Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie and Norah Braden. Through the activities of these individuals an understanding can be formed of how the ?studio?/?modern?/?contemporary? pottery movement became established. Key factors are identified as peer recognition amongst individual potters, critical attention in the specialist and mass media, group exhibitions organized by entrepreneurial gallerists, institutional legitimization through selective acquisitions, and the development of a community of committed and knowledgeable collectors. Peer recognition came in many forms not least through the many artist-run exhibiting societies such as the Guild of Potters, the Red Rose Guild, and the National Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers and Potters. The legitimization of the movement was further advanced through the writings of the potters themselves, and critics such as Bernard Rackham, Herbert Read, and Charles Marriott. The subject of many of these texts were exhibitions in London and the research pays particular attention to the exhibiting strategies of galleries such as Paterson?s, Lefèvre, and the Brygos Gallery. Institutional legitimization is revealed by the collecting and exhibiting activities of bodies such as the Dartington Hall Trust, V&A Museum, Contemporary Art Society, British Institute of Industrial Art, and the provincial museums. Complementing and interacting with the work of these institutions was a group of individual collectors actively building substantial personal collections, including Sydney Greenslade, Ernest Marsh, Eric Milner-White, and Henry Bergen. However, alongside this particularly connoisseurial class of collector there developed new forms of consumption related to a growing interest amongst the middle classes in interior decoration and design. The research is based on archival study and draws on a range of sources of information from personal correspondence to contemporary newspaper and magazine articles. The research reveals the necessity for these artist potters to adopt a hybrid identity through a variety of production, pricing, display, and discursive strategies. Sustainability of practice determined the negotiation of a range of relationships with mass production, traditional handiwork and the fine art world. As such, many contemporary debates concerning function, categorization, and economics can be traced back and lessons learnt from this key period of innovation and modernization.
Reviewer Comments: