A beautifully decorated Clarice Cliff Secrets pattern conical sugar shaker with excellent pattern coverage. It has good, bright paintwork and is free from any scratches, hairlines or restoration. The underside is stamped "Fantasque Hand Painted Bizarre by Clarice Cliff Newport Pottery England", and it's a good early one, dating to 1933.

History

Clarice Cliff (1899 – 1972) is one of the most renowned and accomplished ceramic designers of the twentieth century, and her ground-breaking Bizarre ware created from late 1927 through to the mid-to-late 1930s has - quite understandably - achieved worldwide recognition. Born in Tunstall, Stoke On Trent, UK, the heart of The Potteries, the ambitious Clarice Cliff worked her way up from modelling, gilding, outlining and enamelling in various ceramic producing factories until she became art director at A J Wilkinson, aged 30; unheard of, and a first, for a women - not a man - to be in such a senior position and in a highly prestigious firm.

Clarice was then given her own studio at the adjoining Newport Pottery, where she experimented with on-glaze enamel colours on factory seconds that had imperfections. Her Original Bizarre patterns were based around triangles, big and bold, which hid any defects to the bodies of the ceramics, and, more importantly, because they trail-blazed the new modern jazz-age look, which other UK potteries had failed to embrace, they proved to be an instant success. Clarice then developed her own ground-breaking modern shapes (that we now call Art Deco) to tie in with a vast range of her newly designed patterns, from stylised landscapes - such as "Secrets", as offered here - to bold cubist, geometric and abstract designs that she developed from 1928. It is no wonder that her work is so fervently sought after, and has been since the 1970s. It’s full of such joy, such style and such fun - and nothing then or since can compete with its unparalleled uniqueness.

Secrets

Issued in 1933 as part of the Fantasque range, Clarice Cliff's "Secrets" pattern is now a highly collectible landscape design and was produced from 1933 until 1937. Featuring a stylised pair of cottages tucked into a hill with an estuary view, it is renowned for its hand-painted vibrant green and yellow colour palette. The pattern embodies the more pictorial phase of Clarice’s Fantasque period, when it moved from earlier geometric patterns to stylized landscapes, and remains one of her most sought-after cottage landscapes.

The pattern depicts a water inlet with two cottages atop a rolling hill with chimneys gently trailing wisps of smoke with a pathway that meanders down to the waterfront. The number of cottages was often reduced to one, when the pattern was painted on smaller wares, such as this conical shaker. The other side of the estuary shows a large tree in the foreground with circles of green and yellow foliage overhanging a sandy beach with a smaller hill gently rising behind it. The sea stretches out into the distance, portrayed with light blue enamel graduating into a darker blue for the horizon. 

Material: glazed earthenware

Manufacturer: Wilkinson Ltd, UK

Designer: Clarice Cliff 

Year of manufacture: 1933

Dimensions: Height 14cm  Diameter 7.5cm  

Condition: very good - with tiniest of nicks to the foot edge. See image.