Clarice Cliff

by Lynn Knight

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 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.

Genres: Biography Memoir, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published September 5, 2005

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have memories of a distinctive nasturtium adorned little set of side plates and cups that belonged to a long dead relative. I think this may, without knowing it, have been my introduction to Clarice Cliff, and now I have an interest in The Potteries and pass her blue plaque regularly... but there was something odd about this book. It was certainly interesting because Clarice Cliff was an uncommon woman for her time (and perhaps this time too) in ways I knew, and ways I didn't know before reading this.

Perhaps it was because the biographer had so little to go on from Clarice herself, she's built her picture up otherwise and it often felt as though it was done in a rather strange fashion more suited to a work of fiction based on the life of a real person.. except that I feel a novel would have fewer irrelevancies. (I am not talking about mere references to what was going on in the wider world for women, that felt entirely appropriate) I did like that we are sometimes presented with different accounts, perhaps from a colleague and a sibling and the facts are drawn out and the uncertainties honestly presented.

Aside (but not really aside at all) from her distinctive design talent, the remarkable thing about Clarice Cliff was her personal life, eventually marrying her well to do boss and long time mentor after the death of his first wife. The implication throughout was that she had had a long romantic relationship with him, but so discreet was she that it somehow seems mere conjecture on the evidence we are given. It feels as though the author doesn't know how to handle such information as she has and is uncomfortable about the role that Colley Shorter's attraction to his worker played in her success.

[Jackie O'sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This should have been so much better. I found myself skip reading through so many chapters where it was repeating parts of the story already said or listing entries in magazines that didn't really add much to the whole. I don't feel like I know much more about Clarice Cliff's life than I did before starting the book which is a shame. At least it acknowledges her extended family which is more than can be said for the film allegedly based on this book but which is nothing like it.

[Hilary Blake · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a 3 for the writing and research about the period and social history of The Potteries. However,it felt as if there wasn't really that much to know about Clarice Cliffe herself, apart from the ceramics, so there was a lot of 'possibly' Clarice did this, 'perhaps' she was there etc.

[Fozia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-researched biography of the artist and her day, and her impact on the visual arts.

[Beth Koorey]

Life was tough in The Potteries. A complex and talented artist, the book depicts life for women to be pretty restrictive.

[Fozia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-researched biography of the artist and her day.