RYE POTTERY DESIGN TEAM

Wally Cole 1913-1999 and Jack Cole 1907-1988 were the main designers at Rye Pottery from its re opening in 1947.Wally trained at The Central School before the war as a potter sculptor showing with Jack in various London Galleries. Jack spent the war as headmaster of Beckenham one on the most innovative and exciting Art schools of the40’s & 50’s. After the War the 2 brothers bought and re opened the Rye Pottery where Wally ‘s passion for simplicity and naturalness proved a winner for Rye in that many of his tableware designs continue in use to the present day, while .Jack was the th inker & motivator with more ideas tumbling out his head in a day than the pottery could ever manage to produce! They also saw the potential of several traditional designs which had been produced at Rye from the 19th c onwards - the 3 sizes of jugs still going strong today in their blue or pink cottage stripes are good examples of this link with Rye’s past.

.

Wally also modelled several of the birds still in the standard range today:- the Penguin was his very first moulded shape as a young student at the Central School of Art in 1930/31, while our Ducks, Robins and Owls are all Wally Cole designs

Tarquin Cole Wally’s son took over the running with his wife Biddy, in 1978. Trained 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. Many of the 1960’s and 70’s buildings such as Warwick University, Manchester Magistrates Court and St Thomas’s Hospital which used plain white tiles as external wall cladding were originally the result of his detailed work . 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 where at least he had total control over his own production. Rye Tiles produced screen printed and hand painted tiles- one range of which won his second Design Council award in 1974. Never losing his interest in & involvement with the family firm meant that in 1978 he was happy to take over at the Pottery. This task coincided with the movement of much pottery manufacture to the Far East so that new 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!

Professor Neal French born 1933. educated Chelmsford Grammar School,. Mid
Essex Technical College & School of Art & the Royal College of Art, where
he studied both sculpture and pottery modelling under Arnold Machin and
ceramic design under professor ‘Bobby’ Baker. He designed, with fellow
student David White, The Royal College Shape in bone china, later produced
at the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company . In 1960 this range won a Design
Centre Award and The Duke of Edinburgh’s first Prize for Elegant Design.
After fourteen years at Worcester , he finally went into full time teaching
at Hornsey College of Art. where he became Course Leader, Head of School &
Deputy Dean, & finally Emeritus Professor in 1991 following early
retirement.

Neal has kept his industrial connections by designing figures for Rye Pottery, starting with The Lovers in 1983 until .his latest Rye figures: Lord Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton which were produced to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar . 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 a few years ago to model Mrs Thatcher for her old Finchley constituency! Neal has continued to design large scale figures in stoneware or resin with a bronze finish. Neal French has written and co edited with John Sandon and Larry Branyan Worcester Blue and White Porcelain 1751-1790 and in 1995 produced a handbook on Ceramic Painting for Batsford’s The Complete Potter series. published by Batsford.

Tony Bennett b 1949 Trained Wolverhampton Art School , Royal College of Art. Tony now teaches ceramics at Hastings College whilst producing his own commissioned work mainly for sale in galleries in the USA. He has designed a wide range of pieces here at Rye for over the past 25 years, starting with the very successful Canterbury Tales series, which he researched meticulously finding some of his early inspiration in The Ellesmere Chronicles, and 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 Running Hare are sought after collector items Tony’s current subject with Rye is The 1066: 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.

Tarquin and Chris O’Donoghue have between them designed most of the Naive Pastoral Groups . The usual routine is a sketch by Tarquin which 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 & these pooled ideas for the Pastoral Rye groups have resulted in some very charming compositions, for example State Occasion which 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 first group of Shepherd Neame & his Wife, all the later pieces have some sort of modelled action happening on the back, The Naive 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 !

Gordon Davies was asked by Canterbury Cathedral to work with Rye back in the early 1970’s, the result being The Wife of Bath- who 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 and the three Kings and attendant Shepherds for us, we never did manage to get an Angel from him!. A true Renaissance man Gordon has 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.

Joan de Bethel designed Shepherd Neame and his Wife of Sussex. Joan and her late 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. These de Bethel cats are NOT connected in any way with Rye Pottery

Wendy Johnson designed The Fisherman’s Tale: a student at the Royal College of Art with both Tarquin and Neal, Wendy sadly died before Rye was able to commission further figures from her.

Stephen Russell is our Pottery Thrower responsible for all the tableware which Rye continues to produce for the discerning customer/ collector. All Stephen’s hand thrown pottery, bowls, mugs, vases etc have his initial S stamped into the clay, this system was started by Wally and Jack when they re opened the Pottery in 1946/7 so that all their apprentice throwers had their own special initial letters to stamp into the wet clay to identify each piece of their work. These stamped letters in the clay however, DO NOT in any way indicate that the finished design or decoration is by the same person.

The Rye Pottery Decorators
June Woolley was head paintress until her retirement in 1998 after only 45 years! Luckily for us all, she still keeps her hand in by producing the pencilled layouts for most of the lettered commemorative ware produced. June of course, is an invaluable source of knowledge when a new pattern is being planned or an old one being dug out of the archives!.

Julie Catt has taken over all the commemorative lettered ware for which Rye is so well known, Julie, as well as painting all the standard table ware, is also Rye’s tile decorator and her ravishing flower and fruit tiles are used all over the world

All the decorators play a vital part in creating today’s eminently collectable Rye Pottery figures. Once the first piece is ready for painting the input of all the girls in the decorating room is called into action: Biddy Cole, who studied historical costume design, puts up various suggestions which are tried out and rejected and the best parts of several ideas are then discussed, re painted and considered again and again before the final definitive sample is painted & fired and only then is it ready to become a permanent part of the Rye Pottery range
Karen Wicken and Jane Davies are our two decorators responsible for the ranges of figures and animals - each one hand painted and of course with its own individual style. Each item of Rye Pottery is initialled by the paintress although here at Rye we always know which pot has been painted by which decorator and woe betide anyone who uses or even moves some one else’s paint brushes or colour dishes!!

Finally every single piece of fired pottery has to pass the eagle eye of Betty Sayer our valiant packer and despatcher. Betty is also responsible for printing the distinctive Rye Pottery back stamp - the yearly dated stamp which was introduced to mark the Millennium; she also prints any of the transfers which are used for multiple runs of small tankards for Rye New York for example or special screen printed tiles .