Clarice Cliff

by Lynn Knight (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.27

  Clarice Cliff was one of the most prominent ceramic designers of the twentieth century. Born in 1899 in the Staffordshire Potteries, she started work as just another factory girl, but by 1928 had launched her own range of pottery, 'Bizarre'. A 'gargantuan feast of colour', it blazed a trail through the homes of inter-war Britain. But if Clarice Cliff's rise from apprentice gilder to art director was remarkable - and all the more so for her being a woman - it was not without its tensions; for years she conducted a secret relationship with her married boss. Fusing art, design and industry and vividly conveying the texture of women's lives between the wars, this is a compelling study of the complex, talented woman whose work is for many the epitome of art deco.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $4.22

  Clarice Cliff was one of the most significant ceramic designers of the twentieth century. Her work - a 'gargantuan feast of colour' - is avidly collected and is for many the epitome of Art Deco. From the first, Clarice Cliff refused limitations. When she started work in the Potteries before the First World War, she was just another factory girl with a rolled-up pinny in her pocket and nothing much expected of her future. But by 1928, the year of the 'Flapper-vote', Clarice Cliff was launching 'Bizarre', a range of pottery as striking in appearance as in name, each piece stamped with her own signature. Women responded to the modern spirit of her work. 'Bizarre' was different at a time women hoped their lives could be different too. Clarice Cliff's tastes were magpie and eclectic: the latest European styles, ancient colourings and cottage-garden flowers were given a domestic context. The resulting look was bold, innovative and all the rage. As a working-class woman, Clarice Cliff's journey from apprentice gilder to art director was remarkable. But the life of the brilliant girl artist , as the press romantically dubbed her, was not without its ironies.Though a thoroughly modern career woman, she lived for years with her parents in the terraced house she had grown up in; she became a public figure but conducted a clandestine relationship with her married boss; she designed for women at home, but rarely took a day off work. In her insightful and engrossing biography of this talented, ground-breaking woman, Lynn Knight also draws a vivid portrait of Britain between the wars, and in particular of the lives of women. Fusing art, design and industry, social history and biographical detail, it is a vibrant study of an Art Deco icon whose work continues to arouse strong and conflicting passions.