Rye Pottery’s Design Team
Tarquin Cole hand painting a Rye Tiles Mural - Click to enlarge
Tarquin Cole & Biddy Cole
Tarquin Cole (with his wife Biddy) took over the running of Rye Pottery from his father Wally in 1978. He is Rye Pottery’s Creative and Design Director.
With his exacting eye, Tarquin oversees all creative elements of the business, expertly commissioning and guiding each new figure, line and special commission from initial concept through to full production. Alongside his collaborative work with all our designers (see below) many lines and specific pieces have been designed by him, or stem from one of his original ideas, including several pieces in the Pastoral Collection as well as a host of special commissions and commemorative lines.
Tarquin trained in ceramics at The Royal College of Art. He had planned to become a tableware designer, but instead formed his own company – Ceramic Consultants Ltd, a design studio in London – working as a bridge between architects and the building industry. His many early commissions included 1960’s and 70’s buildings such as Warwick University, Manchester Magistrates Court and St Thomas’s Hospital, in all of which projects he pioneered the use of plain white glazed tiles as external wall cladding. In 1964 he was asked to design a range of oven to tableware for a Scottish Pottery, Govancroft, where he produced a range of oven-to-tableware which won a Council of Industrial Design Award in 1966 – the first Design Award ever for a Scottish company. (Click here to see Tarquin’s award-winning range, now held by the V&A)
His interest in architectural ceramics developed into designing murals for many public buildings both at home and abroad, while frustration with the ever dwindling number of English manufacturers led to the start of Rye Tiles in 1966. This gave him total control over his own production, Rye Tiles produced hand-painted and screen printed tiles for projects from Motorway Restaurants & Tube Station restoration to bathrooms at the Ritz, or from Saudi Arabian palace bathrooms & The State House in Nigeria to a 17thc farmhouse restoration in New England. One range of his designs – Blazer- won him his second Design Council Award in 1974. Today Rye Tiles continue to produce their ranges of hand-painted tiles for kitchens and bathrooms. (Click here to see Tarquin’s award-winning Tiles, which forms part of the recently digitised Design Council Slides Collection)
Never losing his interest in and involvement with the family firm meant that in 1978 when Wally wanted to retire to concentrate on his own studio pottery and sculpture, Tarquin was happy to take over at the Pottery. This task coincided with the movement of much pottery manufacture to the Far East so that tableware had to be put on the back burner and new ideas had to be introduced to keep the works going. The Canterbury Tales was the first and thankfully, very successful series introduced by Tarquin and the discovery that the Chaucer Hounds were being sold without the Monk made him think that a range of animals might be another winner!
Biddy is Rye Pottery’s Managing Director, running the day-to-day production process as well as heading sales and marketing. After a drama teaching course at The Central School of Speech & Drama, which fortuituously included a series of lectures in historical costume design, she embarked on a stint in Fleet Street. Since moving down to Rye in 1967 to start their family, Biddy too, has become integral to the creative process at Rye Pottery. She works closely with Tarquin, and together they discuss, research, tweak and rework all new figures and designs, sometimes for months or very occasionally years, and always down to the tiniest detail. The result is a consistent design ethos that pervades each and every piece producing the look and feel that is quintessentially “Rye Pottery”.
Wally and Jack Cole reopened Rye Pottery in 1947 - Click to enlarge
Walter Cole MBE (Wally) 1913-1999 & John Cole (Jack) 1907-1988
Brothers Wally and Jack Cole who had re-opened Rye Pottery in 1947 after WW2, were the main designers until Wally retired in 1978. From working class origins in Woolwich, Jack had originally trained to teach metal and wood work. He then took a sabbatical from teaching for a year to join Wally who was already on a sculptor/potters course at The Central School of Art – now known as Central St Martins – in the 1930′s. However the changing post-war world encouraged a change in direction for them both – Jack was headmaster of Beckenham Art School by this time, while Wally needed to jump start his career after 6 years of war service. Wally‘s passion for simplicity and naturalness proved a winner for Rye, so much so that many of his designs continue in use to the present day.
Jack the thinker and motivator, had more ideas tumbling out his head in a day than the Pottery could ever manage to produce!
Rye Pottery pieces were selected for display in one of the Design Pavilions of the 1951 Festival of Britain (Click here to take a look). Some of those same designs are still in current production 60 years later. Both Wally Cole and Jack Cole have examples of their pre-war studio pottery in the Victoria and Albert Museum. (Click here and also here and here to see their studio work held by the V&A) Their early work at Rye Pottery is also in museums around the world including the V&A and the British Museum’s Geffrye Museum. (Click here to see the 1950s Rye Pottery in the Geffrye Museum or look here to see 1950s Rye Pottery at the V&A.)
Jack Cole's detailed notes for decoration Click to Enlarge
Their incredible attention to detail is revealed by the picture to the right. This shows just one of Jack’s many intricate instruction notes for Rye Pottery decorators to follow to ensure the designs were repeated exactly, each and every time the pattern was used on a particular pot. A similar process happened with the throwers. However much it may appear to the contrary, no single area of design, shape or decoration was left to chance – a company ethos that continues to this day!
The duo saw the potential of several traditional pots that had been produced at Rye from the 1850s – the blue or pink cottage striped jugs or small mugs- though the decorating finish is quite different the shapes are very close to the 19th century pots and are good examples of this continuing link with Rye’s past. Wally also modelled several of the birds still in the standard range today: The Rye Pottery Penguin was his very first moulded shape as a young student at Woolwich Polytechnic in 1930/1 and our Rye Pottery Ducks, Owls and Robins are all Wally Cole designs.
Designers
Tony Bennett - Tony trained at Wolverhampton Art School & The Royal College of Art. He designed pieces for Royal Copenhagen before starting his teaching career, he recently retired from his post in the Pottery department at Hastings College to concentrate on producing his own commissioned work mainly for sale in galleries here and in the USA. He has designed a wide range of pieces here at Rye over the past 30 years, starting with the very successful Canterbury Tales series, which he researched meticulously finding some of his early inspiration in The Ellesmere Chronicles, later producing many beautifully modelled animals covering both domestic animals like sheep, cows and goats and of course Pigs, as well as some more exotic ones like Cockatoos or Zebras. He is able to convey great movement and strength in all his work for Rye, so that already many of his animals such as the Rye Rabbit are sought after collector items.
Tony’s current subject with Rye is The 1066: Bayeux Tapestry, Battle of Hastings series where he is working very closely from the original wonderful Bayeux Tapestry itself with all its humour and detail so suited to both his own and Rye Pottery’s skills and abilities.
Gordon Davies (1926 -2007) – Sculptor and painter Gordon was asked by Canterbury Cathedral to work with Rye Pottery back in the early 1970’s, the result being The Wife of Bath - which for many years was the best selling figure from The Canterbury Tales series. Gordon was unable to work for us when in 1980 it was decided to produce the whole range of Chaucer’s characters, but later on he was able to produce The Rye Nativity with the three Kings and attendant Shepherds for us, we never did manage to get an Angel from him! A true Renaissance man, Gordon had the ability to turn his hand to any facet of the creative visual arts, we were indeed fortunate to have him occasionally designing for us at Rye.
Neal French – Neal is a figurative sculptor and potter who trained at Mid Essex Technical College & School of Art before going on to The Royal College of Art for a post-graduate degree. Working at the Royal College at the same time as Tarquin he studied both sculpture, pottery modelling and ceramic design. He designed, with fellow student David White, The Royal College Shape in bone china, later produced at the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company where he worked as staff designer. In 1960 this range won both a Design Centre Award and The Duke of Edinburgh’s first Prize for Elegant Design.
After fourteen years at Worcester, he went into full-time teaching at Hornsey College of Art, remaining as a Consultant at Royal Worcester for 5 years. At Hornsey, later Middlesex Polytechnic, he became Course Leader, Head of School and Deputy Dean, becoming Professor in 1985 and then Emeritus Professor in 1991 following early retirement.
Casting the Rye Pottery Boy & Girl
Neal has kept his industrial connections by designing figures for Rye Pottery. The Lovers in 1983 completed in 1988 were followed by The American Colonial range and then his Edwardian Country House Gardeners, Cooks and Golfers. With his great love of cricket (Neal’s a keen MCC member) he designed first The Bowler William Lillywhite (a Sussex player) to mark the 250th anniversary of Rye Cricket Club followed by the Rye Batsman – Fuller Pilch of Kent.
In 2005 we asked him to to help Rye commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar: Lord Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton were the elegant result This pair as always, show Neal’s meticulous attention to detail and his intensive care in researching each of his subjects, perhaps the reason he was asked some years ago to model Mrs Thatcher for her old Finchley constituency! Neal continues to design large-scale figures for both exhibitions and as private commissions in stoneware or resin with a bronze finish no doubt these large scale figures provide a good working contrast with the small scale designs he produces for us here at Rye. To look at all the figures Neal has designed for us at Rye Pottery click here, or to find out more about Neal you can visit his own website here.
Chris O’Donoghue – Chris trained at Bournemouth Art College and Poole Pottery. Between them, Tarquin and Chris O’Donoghue have designed most of Rye Pottery’s Naïve Pastoral Groups. The usual routine is a sketch by Tarquin that is then modelled by Chris, endlessly changed and edited again by Tarquin, who may have held the original idea in his head since he was a boy. The production of these figures is quite different from commissioning either Tony Bennett or Neal French and these pooled ideas for the Pastoral Rye groups have resulted in some very charming compositions. For example State Occasion was based on a school boy theatre visit when Tarquin sat in the Royal Box and noticed the uniformed flunkey outside having a sneaky glass of sherry during the performance. As these groups develop so does the detail in each one, originally almost plain on the back as in The Hoppickers, all the later pieces have some sort of modelled action happening on the back. The Naïve Nativity has both Joseph and a Shepherd in relief behind the stable, while Mother’s Day has a baby in its cradle plus a black & white cat! Chris though still working with clay and earth has now moved on to landscape garden design. You can visit Chris’ website here.
Joan de Bethel - Joan designed Shepherd Neame and his Wife of Sussex as a thank you to Tarquin for helping her at the time of her husband’s death. Joan and her husband David were known for their range of wonderful dressed papier maché cats. Since David’s death Joan has produced her cats on a pottery base, each one numbered and signed. Please Note however that these pottery de Bethel cats are NOT connected in any way with Rye Pottery.
Europa- Rye Pottery figure by Wendy Johnson
Wendy Johnson – Wendy designed The Fisherman’s Tale. she was a student at the Royal College of Art with both Tarquin and Neal. She also produced a rather wonderful Europa figure (right) on a large white bull for Rye which we had hoped would become a big seller when we finally joined the EU.
Unfortunately we somehow rather misjudged the enthusiasm of the general UK public for this union! Sadly, Wendy died before Rye was able to commission further figures from her.