British pottery company
Portmeirion
is a British pottery company based in
Stoke-on-Trent
, England. They specialise in
earthenware
tableware
.
[2]
[3]
[4]
History
[
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]
Portmeirion Pottery began in 1960 when
pottery
designer
Susan Williams-Ellis
(daughter of Sir
Clough Williams-Ellis
, who created the Italian-style
Portmeirion
Village in North Wales) and her husband, Euan Cooper-Willis, took over a small pottery-decorating company in
Stoke-on-Trent
called
A. E. Gray Ltd
, also known as Gray's Pottery. Susan Williams-Ellis had been working with A.E. Gray for some years, commissioning designs to sell at the gift shop in Portmeirion Village, the items bearing the backstamp "Gray's Pottery Portmeirionware". In 1961, the couple purchased a second pottery company, Kirkhams Ltd, that had the capacity to manufacture pottery, and not only decorate it. These two businesses were combined and Portmeirion Potteries Ltd was born.
Susan Williams-Ellis' early Portmeirion designs included Malachite (1960), Moss Agate (1961) and Talisman (1962).
[5]
In 1963, she created the popular design Totem, an abstract pattern based on primitive forms coupled with a cylindrical shape.
She later created Magic City (1966) and Magic Garden (1970), but arguably Portmeirion's most recognised design is the Botanic Garden range, decorated with a variety of floral illustrations adapted from Thomas Green's
Universal or-Botanical, Medical and Agricultural Dictionary
(1817), and looking back to a tradition begun by the
Chelsea porcelain factory
's "botanical" designs of the 1750s. It was launched in 1972 and, with new designs added periodically, is still made today,
[6]
the most successful ceramics series of botanical subjects.
[7]
More recent designs have included
Sophie Conran
's
Crazy Daisy
and
Dawn Chorus
.
On 23 April 2009, Portmeirion Potteries Ltd purchased the
Royal Worcester
and
Spode
brands, after they had been placed into
administration
the previous November. Portmeirion Potteries has since changed its company name to Portmeirion Group to reflect this acquisition.
[8]
The purchase did not include the manufacturing facilities of Royal Worcester or Spode. The manufacture of much of Spode's ware was returned to Britain from the Far East, to the Portmeirion Group's factory in Stoke-on-Trent.
[9]
In 2019, the
Victoria and Albert Museum
mounted an exhibition of Portmeirion pottery.
[10]
Gallery
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References
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Further reading
[
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]
- Jenkins, Stephen, & Mckay, Stephen 2000.
Portmeirion Pottery
. Richard Dennis.
ISBN
0-903685-78-7
.
External links
[
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]
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