Introduction Clarice Cliff was born and raised in the County of Staffordshire, England where the whole countryside was surrounded with factories involved in ceramic manufacture.
She worked in this industrial environment here and received an opportunity about 1928 to provide ideas of her own to the industry.
A lot of her original work used her talent for producing hand painted fired ceramic model and novelty table items.
These were labelled under the Wilkinson factory label.
Her ability allowed her to assemble a staff and to train and organise them in a production based setup in the Newport factory.
Here the range was extended and catalogued.
Because she moved against the mainstream taste of the era by exaggerating the brush stokes to emphasize that the pottery was hand painted and that the shapes were design break away, she called the range " Bizarre".
Items produced under this name formed the basis of her fame in the years that followed.
Her pottery was based on bright hand painted potter ceramics which drew heavily from the Art Deco period.
Collecting Clarice Cliff Because she and her team were so prolific in range and style as well as volume she guaranteed eventually a big collector base.
This was because people could actually obtain a piece of her work.
This was so important that even today your can find collector bases in USA, England, Australia, South Africa, Canada and more.
Points for Collecting *Shapes: Jugs, vases, candlesticks, plates, wall chargers,tea and coffee sets, bowls and covered jars produced in the Art Deco geometric shapes are desirable.
These shapes are given names such as Lotus and Isis jars, Stamford, Conical,Sliced Circle are some named shapes.
*Designs: Each piece is hand painted with in a multi colour theme and each has a name such as: Coral firs, Pink Roof Cottage, Orange Autumn, Melon, Summerhouse and another 200 such design names are known.
In addition within the design pattern there were different finishes which were named such as Goldstone, Latona, Persian, Fantasque, Inspiration and Bizzare.
For the collector the combination of features results in desirability such as an exciting shape with an exciting pattern that is well painted.
Rarity pays a big part and there is great excitement at the discovery of a rare new painted pattern.
*Novelties: As a separate category there is the question of novelty.
Clarice Cliff produced little sculptured figures and novelties which are often rare and highly prized.
Famous here is the conical sugar sifter which though for the table is really a novelty.
In this category the Jazz Age figures are probably the most famous and in November, 1997, a Clarice Cliff Age of Jazz figure set a new record, selling to a determined American collector at Christie's for over $20,000.
Caution Clarice Cliff pottery is produced in a soft pottery base and is very easily chipped or damaged.
It is then often well and invisibly repaired, so well that even the experts can't tell.
If this is the case and the piece is valuable then generally this may not matter because pieces are becoming more difficult to obtain.
Damage to any collectible drops the value, sometimes dramatically.
So move around with your UV lamp and take council from other collectors and dealers.
The auction houses are not of much use generally.
Be aware of the degree of over painting in the repair.
This is really important.
If the piece area has a big over paint the you are not looking at Clarice Cliff if you get my drift.
Also relatively new is the question of fakes coming out of the East.