THE RISE OF CERAMICS
From painted porcelain tea sets to sculptural stoneware forms, Charlo e Abrahams discovers that ceramics are seriously on trend and eminently collectable
From porcelain to stoneware, discover the studio ceramics commanding a"ention right now
ceramics are hot property. In May, the 2018 Loewe Cra ! Prize was awarded to the Sco"ish ceramic artist Jennifer Lee, with another ceramicist, Takuro Kuwata, scooping one of the two Special Mention gongs. DanishAmerican po"er Eric Landon’s speeded-up Instagram videos (@ tortus) of the throwing process regularly notch up hundreds of thousands of views. And, should you search for ‘ceramics’ at the online marketplace Etsy, you’ll be rewarded with more than 770,000 results. ‘Ceramics have been a huge trend over the last few years,’ says Etsy’s resident Trend Expert Dayna Isom Johnson. ‘Shoppers are adding these beautiful hand-spun pieces to every nook of their homes to add a touch of personality.’
Business is brisk at the auction houses too, with price records being broken on a regular basis. Last year, for example, Sotheby’s London achieved a European record of £ 224,750 for a c1550- 60 Urbino maiolica istoriato dish (pictured below). While, last November, contemporary ceramic auctioneer Maak smashed its own house record when it sold a porcelain open bowl by modernist studio po"er Lucie Rie for a hammer price of £76,000 (page 119).
‘ There hasn’t been such strong interest in ceramics of all kinds since the middle of the last century,’ says Pontus Silfverstolpe, Founder and Head of Content at the art and antiques search engine Barnebys.
So what’s changed? ‘A number of di #erent in $uences have come together,’ explains Maak’s Founding Director Marijke Varrall-Jones. ‘ For example, ceramics have been brought into the public domain, thanks to Instagrammers and TV programmes such as BBC’s The Great Po ery Throw
Down, while at the same time, ceramicists have started to be viewed in a contemporary art, rather than
a purely cra ", context.’ That shi " in perception is signi #cant. While ‘po!ery’ remained # rmly in the cra "sphere, prices could only rise so far. Now that ceramics are being embraced by the art world, the sky’s the limit. Prices for Lucie Rie, for example, have been rising so fast that her sale record has been beaten four times in two years. (It currently stands at $170,000, a price achieved at Phillips New York in December 2016.)
‘ Ten years ago, I could count on two hands the number of ceramic artists who would consistently sell above £3,000,’ says Marijke. ‘ Now a signi #cant number regularly sell above £10,000.’ Such market activity has caught the interest of a new type of buyer – people who began their collecting careers in contemporary art, design or photography and are now realising the investment potential of ceramics in general, and 20th- century studio ceramics in particular.
The Pull of Studio Ceramics
Variations of the vessel form by Rie and fellow pioneers Hans Coper, Bernard Leach and William Staite Murray are the star a!ractions. Coper’s Cycladic Winged Bud Form fetched a record £74,000 at Maak in November 2016. But lesser-known artists of the post-war period such as Janet Leach, as well as more contemporary makers including Emmanuel Cooper, Edmund de Waal and John Ward are proving popular. ‘ The generation of collectors who have been building up to a Coper or a Staite Murray are now being priced out, so
they are buying work by other makers,’ Marijke explains. ‘John Ward is very popular now – we saw his prices go from £ 2,500 to around £17,000, pre!y much overnight.’ Ceramic artist Ma! Smith puts the popularity of studio ceramics down to their ‘ liveability’. ‘ You know they’ve been made by hand,’ he explains, ‘and even though they operate purely as objects, they speak of functionality.’ This sense of practical domesticity helps to explain the popularity of older examples of ceramic art too. According to Richard Hird, Specialist in European Ceramics at Sotheby’s London, the best-selling pieces still tend to be based on familiar, everyday forms such as vases and tableware. In March 2017, for example, the auction house’s London o"ce sold an 18th- century Sèvres tea service painted by the renowned porcelain manufacturer’s most celebrated artist, Charles-Nicolas Dodin, for £150,000 (page 120). While four Meissen plates (page 118), commissioned in the 1760s by Frederick the Great for his personal use, fetched a combined total of £143,750. ‘ What’s so interesting about these objects is that they were handled on a daily basis,’ explains Richard, ‘and part of the appeal is wondering about who used them in the past.’
And what of the future? The good news for those who have already invested is that the current market is expected to remain buoyant. ‘ The interest that has been emerging over the last two to three years will certainly continue,’ says Pontus
Silfverstolpe. But what’s perhaps even more exciting is the potential experts see in work being produced right now. Antiques of the Future Compared with ! ne art, ceramics are still an a "ordable art form and today’s makers are experimenting with what the material can do in a way that’s not been seen since the pioneering days of the mid 1900s. According to Marijke, it is innovation that turns an eyecatching pot into a piece to invest in. ‘ Rie, Coper et al were at the forefront of new things which is why their work has endured,’ she says. ‘ The same is true today. Regardless of what’s in fashion, the people who are going to do well are the ones at the cu#ing edge of new ways of thinking.’
For ceramics devotees with an eye on a future heirloom, there are plenty of makers doing just that. As experimental artist Ma# Smith explains, ‘ There’s a real crossfertilisation between disciplines now, and the strict rules of form and function are much more up for debate. I think the 2010s will be seen as a high point in the !eld of ceramics.’