Clarice Cliff
A ceramicist ahead of her time
AGIFTED artist and genius businesswoman, Clarice Cliff was ahead of her time. She revolutionised ceramic design and moved from her late Victorian working-class beginnings to the highest echelons of society, becoming director of the Shorter brothers business empire (one of the dynasty names of the potteries). In a male-dominated industry and maleorientated world, Clarice completely went against the grain; her story is as unique as her legendary work.
Born on 20 January, 1899, in the pottery town of Tunstall in north-west Staffordshire, Clarice Cliff was the fourth child of Ann and Harry Cliff and one of seven siblings. Life could be harsh in late Victorian workingclass households, and the Cliff family, with the father working as a moulder in an iron foundry and the mother taking in washing, were no exception.
From a very young age, Clarice’s artistic skill was recognised and, as she was required to bring money into the home, she left school at thirteen for an apprenticeship at a local factory as a free-hand paintress. Her parents were delighted – this was the highest wage you could get on the production line – but after just two years Clarice left the job.
“It was unheard of,” says 20thcentury design specialist and auctioneer Will Farmer. “At that time, your apprenticeship set your career for life . . . and when Clarice went to work at another firm as a lithographer – which was a backward step – her parents must have gone nuts at her!”
But Clarice was learning. As a teenage girl working in a huge factory, she was well known for never taking a lunch break. Instead, she would go round the factory talking to the mould makers, the modellers, the kiln firers.
“People thought she was a bit odd,” Will says. “She wasn’t, of course – she was very clever, making sure she understood every part of the process.”
A year was sufficient for her agile brain to absorb all that was required and, now fully qualified, she made her final move to A.J. Wilkinson, one of the biggest potbanks in Stoke-onTrent. Located in Burslem, it wasn’t exactly around the corner from home, but her enquiries revealed that the company had won international diplomas for its decorations and was highly regarded. More importantly, it employed designers, an aspect eagerly sought by this ambitious young lady even though it was a situation normally reserved for the men.
Two brothers were at the helm of A.J. Wilkinson’s: Guy Shorter was the production manager and his older brother Colley, a man some 17 years Clarice’s senior, was the commercial manager and her boss. The atmosphere was comfortable, the staff were pleasant and encouraging and Clarice felt fully confident that, having spent four years practising all methods of decoration, her ambitions could well mature.
Although employed there as a lithographer, Clarice kept on free painting in her lunchbreak and after hours, and was spotted painting by the paint-shop manager. Impressed, he took her up to Colley Shorter’s office who pulled Clarice off the factory floor and into the design studio where she began to work alongside leading designer Frank Butler.
“You talk about fate, fortune, luck,” Will says, “this is the trigger point in her career. She starts modelling, she starts creating and in a very short space of time she makes it incredibly clear to the management and to her colleagues that she is here to work, to be creative and to increase the fortunes of the company.”
Fast-forward to 1926 and Clarice became even more of an asset. “It was the time of the National Strike when the coal miners downed tools,” Will says, “and with no coal to fire the kilns, it was a very difficult time for the potteries.”
A.J. Wilkinson had just acquired Newport Pottery and, on a tour of the factory, Clarice noticed that the storerooms were full of factory seconds. These pots were considered
unusable, but for Clarice they were an opportunity. With one paintress, a decorating room and a couple of months, she transformed these misshapen pots with blocks of colour.
“It was the start of Bizarre Ware,” Will says. “It was all done behind closed doors in the utmost secrecy, and when it was revealed no-one had ever seen anything like it.”
For these Bizarre Ware originals, Colley called in his best salesman, Ewart Oakes. Ewart was flabbergasted at what he was being asked to sell, but agreed to take them to his best client. Usually travelling by train, Colley lent him his Rolls Royce for the task.
“When Ewart opened the boot and the head buyer from a big china retailers in Oxford saw them, she said, ‘I’ll take the lot.’ From then on it was just like a rolling stone – it gathered pace so quickly,” Will explains.
Not only was Clarice’s work introducing new ideas such as the strident use of colour, it also introduced a female signature for the first time: a massive step forward.
Further examples of Clarice’s Bizarre Ware was widely seen at the British Industries Fair in the spring of 1928. Although initially received with mixed feelings, it was still successful. The autumn of 1928 saw Clarice and three of her paintresses at Waring and Gillow’s Oxford Street store in London, demonstrating their daily work routines. It was a huge success.
It’s estimated that in her career Clarice made eight million pieces and her range of work (collectively referred to as Bizarre Ware) led the way. “Art Deco was the new mood,” Will says, “but everyone was looking at her and copying her. There are a few other factories: Carlton Ware were doing their own interpretation of Art Deco which is very different from Clarice’s. Shelley are doing theirs; very different again. Then there’s Charlotte Rhead, of course, and she’s doing her tube-lined work. But all of the factories were desperate to keep up with her and just couldn’t. Any time they came up with something close, she just handbrake-turned it and left people standing.”
By now, thoroughly modern Clarice was confident enough to buy a car. Colley’s chauffeur had taught her to drive, and the cost of buying and running a second-hand Austin Seven was within her means. There was no driving test to take and she was soon on the road. She became a novelty as the first woman in Stoke-on-Trent to buy her own car. She moved out of her parents’ house and took her own flat.
“An unmarried woman in the 1930s living on her own was a scandal,” Will notes, “but Clarice didn’t care. She actually lied about her age as she didn’t want people thinking she was born in the 19th century!”
As the 1930s approached, her instinctive enterprises rolled on at an ever-increasing pace. The decade seemed to invite colour and change and Clarice certainly kept abreast of the opportunities and trends that presented themselves.
“She was inspired by the major art movements – she was looking at artists like Mondrian, Modigliani, the major Bauhaus movement – she was completely on point,” Will reveals. “New trends that were happening in London and Paris, she transformed them into everyday domestic wares.”
Her ideas seemed inexhaustible: tea sets with matching tablecloths, dinner sets with matching ashtrays – all that she did attracted attention, and her name became a registered trademark with A.J. Wilkinson, acknowledged leaders in their field.
Colley and Clarice had long shared a close relationship. “Let’s just say it was one of the worst kept secrets in the industry,” Will laughs. “Her apartment wasn’t in the wealthiest area and very unsubtly there was often a Rolls Royce parked outside!”
It was in the autumn of 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II, that Colley’s wife, Annie, died. Propriety generally dictated a two-year delay after a spouse’s death before remarriage, but Colley and Clarice waited a year and then secretly
married in a registry office in the nearby town of Stafford. Colley was fifty-eight, Clarice forty-one and, after a 13-year relationship they were legal at last. Clarice moved into Colley’s home, “Chetwynd”. Here, she stepped away from the limelight.
“I look at Clarice’s life and think how much of it is luck, how much of it is talent and how much of it is pure drive,” Will reflects. “I think certainly in the early part of her career there was a lot of luck, but there is the saying, ‘Show me a chink of light and I’ll force the door wide open’. That was Clarice.
“Everyone says that she was a formidable character,” Will continues. “Her team of paintresses, known as the ‘Bizarre girls’, were encouraged to be individuals: wear the latest
clothes, have their hair done in marcel waves, wear bright lipstick. But they were only ever allowed to address Clarice as “Miss Cliff”. At clocking-in time she would wait and hide around the corner and if there was anyone clocking in late she’d get them: ‘You’re late; we’ll dock that off your wages.’ She was incredibly strict.”
World War II changed everything. Production was handed over to either export wares (it was no longer permitted to produce luxury goods for the home market) but also the huge manufacture of basic white wares for the military. However, even after the war, restrictions persisted and while the pottery companies regained their individuality, all discovered public tastes had changed considerably and tradition was creeping back into fashion. Clarice, now director of all three of the Shorter brothers’ companies, gave her attention to exports, particularly to America and Canada, reviving old lithographs to suit the tastes of these vast markets.
But even before the war Clarice’s work had become much more muted. “By 1936, we’re starting to get the indication that there’s trouble in Europe, there’s a lot of problems with the British monarchy – everything’s starting to change as a mood,” Will explains. “Clarice definitely realised that she’d never revisit those glory years of the early ’30s and once it gets past 1936, a lot of hard-core collectors aren’t interested, even though her career runs until 1964.”
Which begs the question, how much is a Clarice Cliff piece worth?
“The record price at auction was for a May Avenue charger which was sold at Christie’s a few years ago for about £46,000. But you can [regularly] get into the twenty thousands no problem,” Will suggests. That said, you don’t need to be flush with cash to start a Clarice collection. “You can buy something nice and iconic of Clarice’s for under £100, such as a crocus cup and saucer for £60-80.”
In 1961, Colley retired and soon after became bed-ridden. He died of throat cancer in December 1963, at the age of eighty-two. The factory’s continued existence fell to Clarice, but by 1964, overcome by trade difficulties, she sold the factory to Roy Midwinter. “Chetwynd” was not included in the deal. Despite being a very large home, she could not bear to leave it and Colley’s treasured possessions.
It wasn’t until 1969 that Clarice stepped back into the limelight. The Brighton Art Gallery opened an exhibition entitled “The Jazz Age” which inspired a gentleman, Martin Battersby, to create a retrospective of Clarice Cliff, loaning his own limited collection. It became known that there was much more to be seen – if only it could be found! – and Clarice was traced and persuaded to loan some of her own collection.
Clarice was back in the news. But then, on 23 October, 1972, her gardener found her dead in the kitchen of her home. The cause was heart failure. She was seventy-three.
“People used to be very derisive about Clarice,” Will says, who has been collecting and researching the ceramist’s work for nearly four decades. “‘Oh, it’s just cheap stuff sold in Woolworths,’ they’d say. No, it’s not. It’s really expensive and the quality, the execution, the ideas, the range and then the story as well . . . you look at her competitors and they can’t hold a candle to her.
“Even on Antiques Roadshow, after I’ve been valuing for six hours straight and I’m exhausted, if someone reaches in their bag and pulls out a piece of Clarice, it is like getting an adrenaline shot in my arm. I tend to find people know her work, too. I hear some brilliant wrong names like ‘Clarence Clift’, but there is a level of recognition there for a lot of people.”
Perhaps the last word should go to the lady herself: “Having a little fun at my work does not make me any less of an artist and people who appreciate truly beautiful and original creations in pottery are not frightened by innocent tomfoolery!” Clarice stayed true to her vision, made huge changes to both the artistic and social landscape, and refused to accept her lot . . . and all with a smile.
Fieldings Auctioneers hold two dedicated Clarice Cliff sales every year; for more information visit fieldingsauctioneers.co.uk.