Keith Murray (1892-1981) and Wedgwood (1759–Present)

Josiah Wedgwood started making pottery in the eighteenth century, and some of his designs and products, like jasperware, continue to be popular today. In the twentieth century, Josiah Wedgwood & Company began to think about marketing its ceramics in the United States. It opened a New York office in 1906 and aggressively promoted Wedgwood products […]

Bernard Leach (1887–1979)

Bernard Leach is considered the father of contemporary studio pottery in England. He was born in Hong Kong and studied pottery in Japan and Korea. In 1920 he moved to England and started his own pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall, using local clay. At first he made slipware, later stoneware. Many of his simple, Asian-inspired […]

Lucie Rie (1902-1995)

Trained by Josef Hoffmann, Michael Powolny, and other important artists in Vienna, Lucie Rie was a well-known potter in Europe before she fled to England in 1938 to escape the Nazis. At the end of the war, she had a studio in London and made red earthenware; after 1948, she also made stoneware and porcelain. […]

Susie Cooper (1902-1995)

In the 1940s, breakfast in an American middle-class home was often served on dishes by the English designer Susie Cooper. Cooper’s modern shapes and abstract designs sold well in England, but more conservative American buyers preferred her less unusual dishes, made with rings of beige and brown shades. Cooper started as a designer for A. […]

Clarice Cliff (1899–1972)

Clarice Cliff was a decorator and designer who began work at A. J. Wilkinson’s Royal Staffordshire Pottery in Burslem, England, in 1916. She is known for her original, bold, geometric art deco designs. By 1927 she had her own studio at Newport Pottery in Burslem, where she designed Bizarre ware, a hand-painted line of dishes […]