10 FACTS ABOUT CLARICE CLIFF

1

Ceramic artist Clarice Cliff (played by Phoebe Dynevor in the film) was born in Meir Street in Tunstall in 1889 and died in Northwood Lane in Clayton in 1972.

2

She left school at the age of 13 to work in the pottery industry as a gilder. She progressed to freehand painting and studied art and sculpture at Burslem School of Art in the evenings.

3

In 1916 she moved to AJ Wilkinson’s factory in Burslem and continued to develop her skills.

4

She was given her own studio at Newport Pottery in

1927 and developed her own style, decorating white ware in brightly coloured Art Deco-style freehand patterns and triangles. This innovative design became known as ‘Bizarre by Clarice Cliff’. An example is

5

Her hand-painted Crocus range, launched in 1928, was enormously popular. Twenty women painted nothing but Crocus full-time for most of the 1930s.

6

By 1929 she employed 70 painters, mostly women, known as her ‘Bizarre girls’.

7

She fell in love with one of the factory owners, Colley Shorter (played by Matthew Goode in the film),

pictured below.

who was

17 years older, and they married in 1940 after the death of his wife (played by Rachel Shenton). Clarice, above, moved into Shorter’s Clayton home, Chetwynd House. She retired in 1964 and became something of a recluse.

8

Wedgwood produced a range of Clarice Cliff reproductions from 1992 to 2002.

9

A 1933 Clarice Cliff charger called May Avenue was sold for £39,950 at Christie’s in 2003.

10

Her works can be seen in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.