Clarice Cliff Ceramics
By Jane F ~ January 21st, 2009. Filed under: Antiques, Collecting, Color, Décor, Video Blogs.
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At the opening of the New York Ceramics Fair during antiques week in NYC, I was struck by the riotous color and contemporary look of the large Clarice Cliff pottery display in the Cara Antiques booth.
Clarice Cliff is a highly collectible, mid-20th Century English ceramic artist who, as Cara Antiques’ Connie Aranosian explains on our video, produced her iconic pieces for less than two decades before World War II and is still not widely known outside England. Cliff’s work is one of those collectibles that make you say to yourself “I’ve seen that before,” even though you might not be aware of the backstory.
Cliff ceramics have a “home and garden” feel-good quality and special charm in addition to a series of specific themes. Another fascinating aspect is that all of the factory workers who decorated her pottery were women, known as the “Bizarre Girls.” The vase Connie discusses is an example of Bizarre ware pottery.
The New York Ceramics Fair – geared to serious collectors of high end European and Asian porcelain – takes place in January at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts on Fifth Ave., a block away from the Guggenheim Museum.
For more information, here are links to two collecting websites devoted to Cliff’s work that provide a full list of pottery patterns and archival photographs of the factory where her wares were produced.
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