Rye Pottery

Turner Contemporary partners with Rye Pottery for new design

We’re delighted to announce a creative partnership with Turner Contemporary to introduce a striking new design –Breakwater.

Initially conceived by Wally Cole MBE and completed by our current creative director Josh Cole and illustrator Laura Gill, the Breakwater design has been brought to life in a series of ceramic table lamps, utensil pots & vases and will be sold exclusively in the Turner Contemporary shop, Margate until early May 2024.

The collaboration coincides with the launch of Turner’s spring exhibition – Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950-1970, which opened earlier this month, and focuses on abstraction in a post-WWII period.

Once the Rye Pottery Design Team understood the nature of the exhibition we felt instinctively Breakwater could be a great match.The original pattern was developed and trialled in the mid 50s using a very different colour palette, but the randomness of the hand-painted design was difficult to master and ultimately too time consuming.

Working in tandem with Turner director Clarrie Wallis and leadership from the gallery, the Rye Pottery Design Team re-imagined the little known 1950s pattern, which was originally inspired by the weathered wooden groynes on the pebble beaches, into a bold new hand-painted colourway. The new surface decoration features raw, earthy tonal shifts, layered lines and sgraffito, with the colours taking inspiration from the exhibition’s title and abstract markings from key pieces within it, as well as the Rye Pottery archive and our shared coastal geography.

The Mid-Century Modern aesthetic of our shapes and the abstract style of the hand-painted design complement the exhibition perfectly.

Clarrie Wallis, Director of Turner Contemporary, said: “Turner Contemporary is excited to partner with Rye Pottery on a new collection inspired by the 1950s and 60s – a golden era in the pottery’s history. This collaboration honours a significant period in the decorative arts and resonates beautifully with our ‘Beyond Form’ exhibition, which explores the emergence of post-war abstraction and its role in shaping a new period of creative expression.”

Turner Contemporary believes the partnership with Rye Pottery enriches the gallery’s offering and exemplifies its commitment to supporting the vibrant community of craftspeople and the creative industries in the Southeast. It says the collaboration is an opportunity for them to champion traditional craftsmanship and innovative design, furthering the gallery’s role in nurturing the rich cultural landscape of the region.

Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950-1970 runs until May 6th and entry is free. Find out more about the exhibition and how to buy our pottery from the Turner Shop here www.turnercontemporary.org

Arts Film – The making of our Sussex Pigs

An online film about our unusual Sussex Wedding gift, the Sussex Pig has been unveiled by Rye Arts Festival. The 12 minute short is a gentle & thoughtfully constructed piece explaining our pigs’ extraordinary story and revealing exactly how these unusual pottery drinking vessels are made.

Our ceramic Sussex Pigs have been hand-made & hand painted using freehand brushwork since the 1800s, with over 12 hand processes used to create them. Created by arts & culture filmmaker Alisdair Kitchen, the film launched this week as part of Rye Arts Festival’s Digital Fringe.

We’re enormously grateful to Al and the Rye Arts Festival team for choosing us. We really enjoyed working with him and can’t believe he’s made such a strong testament to our amazing team and quite how much time and skill is involved in every single piece of pottery we make.

Do click on the film above to find out about the history of our crazy wedding pigs and how they’re made entirely by hand. And if you’re tempted to have one yourself, you can see the full range by clicking here.

Homes & Gardens – Five Star Hotel Style Feature

Our thanks as ever to the Homes & Gardens team for giving us a great boost by featuring our Mid-century Modern lamp base in their September issue. Particular thanks go to Jo Bailey.

H&Gs “How to Emulate the interiors of some of the world’s chicest hotels” saw our LB1 lamp suggested as a way to recreate the amazing five-star style of the Four Seasons Hotel in Hampshire, originally designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio.

The exact design they featured is ourLB1 Medium featuring our Soho Stripe Design in Denmark Green with a natural linen drum shade. This is a genuine shape from our Mid-Century archive given a contemporary twist with a new decoration bringing the 20th & 21st centuries together. A bold, sculptural statement light.

Click here if you’d like to see some more pics or order one

Darwin & Wallace – No 35 Mackenzie Walk

This was the eighth unique bar & restaurant crafted by the award-winning boutique group Darwin & Wallace. Based on the waterside in Canary Wharf, No 35 was designed to continue the group’s tradition of creating a comfortable sanctuary away from the fast pace of urban life. Detail and quality craftsmanship is key to everything this group creates – if it’s not good enough for your home, it’s not good enough full stop.

Our mid-century Modern LB1 lamp base is featured throughout the space adding a soft, cosy glow with the natural linen shades, while the Denmark Green of our hand-painted Soho Stripe and Cascade decorations tie in with the gentle palette of greens, greys, dusty pinks and natural wood with fresh vegetation used throughout the space.

Do check No 35 out if you’re in town and need a relaxing place to stop, it’s a lovely bar and we were thrilled to be involved.

Living Etc

Chuffed to have The LB1 Mid Century Modern ceramic lamp base picked for the Living Etc Agenda pages.

Do check out the June 2018 edition.

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Country & Town House

Our thanks to Country & Town House magazine and The Insider team for featuring The LB1 – our Mid Century Modern Ceramic Lamp base in their May 2018 Edition.

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Rye Pottery at White City House

We’re very pleased to see Soho House’s latest venture unveiled publicly and even more pleased to see our specially commissioned Mid Century Modern Lamp Bases in situ!

Their latest hotel and member’s club is in London’s Shepherd’s Bush, housed in the former BBC HQ that used to flash up on the telly.

You know – the iconic round 60’s “doughnut” building with the famous sculpture of Helios in the centre.

Shown here: The LB1 Medium in Black Tracery

Choosing our medium LB1, we were asked to create 92 table lamps, 2 for each bedroom.  The Soho House interiors team of Daisy Bere & Linda Boronkay first picked one of our own revamped 1960’s patterns (Black Astrakhan) and then complimented it with 2 further mid century-esque designs alongside one specifically developed for the project – the all new Soho Stripe.

You can view our full range of lamps by clicking here, but for now here’s another pic of one of the cosy White City House rooms.  Oh and did we mention there’s a swimming pool on the roof. With a bar…..

This picture: The LB1 medium in Denmark Green Cascade and Denmark Green Soho Stripe

All images courtesy of White City House

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Mid Century Modern Lamp Base

Welcome to the formal unveiling of our Mid Century Modern LB1 Large Lamp Base.

An iconic shape from our archive redesigned with a contemporary decorative twist in six different designs.

Collection designed & conceived by Josh Cole.

Please CLICK HERE for more details&nbsp

Margaret Howell

We’re very pleased to say that Margaret Howell in London are stocking our Mid Century Modern LB1 large Lamp Base in two different decorations- All White Tracery & Black Astrakhan.

Do TAKE A LOOK at the full range of designs here. 

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Finally, we’d like to introduce you to Miss Simplicity!

Those Collectors who visit the shop in Rye will know if they’ve been lucky, over the last 2 or 3 years they’ve been able to pick up the occasional one-off design sample of this Mid-Century Rye Pottery Classic as we worked out how, and indeed if, we could incorporate a contemporary version of this wonderful, popular figure from days gone by.

So, drum roll please, here is Miss Simplicity fit for the 21st Century, but retaining all her 1950s charm. Modelled by our post-war co-founder Jack Cole, this piece was originally designed as an oil & vinegar bottle. Now with her head firmly in place, and with totally fresh decoration and design, we gave her a suitably demure “soft” launch at the Wealden Times MidSummer Fair in June … and promptly sold out! So now we’ve managed to make a few more, we thought it was time to re-introduce her formally back into British Society.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we’d like you to meet Miss Simplicity.&nbsp

Mid Century vibe as RP featured by GPlan in their new vintage collection

These  photographs show one of Rye Pottery’s 50s style little vases in GPlan’s latest collection of sofas, designed by Red or Dead founder Wayne Hemmingway. It’s a Mid-Century inspired collection, a period we’re very still proud of in our history, and one highly sought after by our collectors.

Rye Pottery was one of a handful of Ceramics exhibitors chosen to show several pieces in the legendary post-war design hall of fame that was the 1951 Festival of Britain. We’re not sure if G-Plan were there too …

This shape has just been brought back into production and is called the Mid-Century Modern v11 vase, click here to see them.

And now we’ll let the pictures do the talking.

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Rye Pottery on BBC tribute to ceramics expert David Barby

Paul Martin with Tarquin Cole

In a new series on BBC2, Flog It Trade Secrets‘ presenter Paul Martin has been revealing the tricks of the trade and surprising things he has learned over his 11 years in television.

Rye Pottery was pleased to be picked for inclusion in the latest programme, which was a touching tribute to the late antiques expert David Barby who died in July 2012, and was a pioneering television antiques expert, not least on Flog It. In the programme presenter Paul reveals: “I didn’t know a great deal about Ceramics [when I started in television], but what I do know now, David taught me”. It was because of David that Paul says he was first introduced to Rye Pottery.

Interviewing Rye Pottery’s Tarquin Cole, Paul discusses the heritage, value and collectability of Sussex and Rye Pottery, not least Hopware, Sussex Pigs, and our Mid-Century Modern classics, contemporary versions of which are still produced by us today. Tarquin took over Rye Pottery from his father Wally Cole MBE in 1978 and is widely regarded as an expert in valuing and dating early Sussex Pottery.

In the programme Paul also discusses Rye Pottery’s Mid-Century”Cottage Stripe” pattern, which has been in constant production since 1950. Examples of this design are included in the Ceramics Collections of both the V&A and the British Museum’s Museum of the Home. Finally Paul braves an attempt at painting another of Rye Pottery’s pigs himself – one of our Sows! We use a very difficult technique that our accomplished paintresses spend years mastering, as the glaze has only just been applied and the slightest touch of a finger or too heavy a brush and the piece can be ruined.

 Flog It Trade Secrets featuring Rye Pottery aired on February 15th 2013 at 18.30 on BBC 2. You can watch the film on the BBC’s iplayer by clicking this link. The section about Rye Pottery starts at 42.15 and ends at 48.07.

Click the following link to see Rye Pottery’s current ranges

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Pamela Goddard 1933-2012

The late Pam Goddard, painting 1950s Rye Pottery Sussex Pigs

We are just back from a funeral, Pamela Goddard, who worked at the pottery from 1948 until she took early retirement in 1984, died at the beginning of June.

Pam was taken on by Jack and Wally Cole to help with decorating the ever increasing range of pottery they were developing in the early post-war years. The country had been starved of pretty things, but now as long as the pottery was for export they could put patterns everywhere! The home market was still restricted to decoration which only used different coloured clay slips, but export allowed total freedom of expression.Pam worked on the Cottage stripes and all their variations and was involved in the introduction of the very popular Multi floral range of tableware (click here fore more), which was exported both to the United States and to several Northern European countries throughout the 1960’s and 70’s.  From the mid 60’s Pam moved from painting to throwing ware and, as more semi-automatic tableware making machinery was introduced,  she  concentrated mainly on thrown dishes, bowls and jugs.

Her thrown ware is identified by the pressed metal P on the base of her pots, identifying her painted work is more of a problem as Rye Pottery standard ware were patterns that were copied from a master original and pieces were not signed until the initialling of each piece was introduced by the younger Coles in the mid 1990’s.

Biddy Cole

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Country Homes & Interiors magazine

We’ve tiled more bathrooms than we can count in the last 40 years with our Rye Tiles Range, but we’ve just spotted a wonderful photograph from interiors magazine Country Homes & Interiors. You can see the beautifully styled shot on the magazine’s website here – Summer bathroom | Bathroom ideas | Image | housetohome.co.uk. It’s a classic straight jug in multifloral and serves as a good reminder that jugs are just as good for flowers as they are for drinks!

Biddy recently bought a Rye Pottery vintage Cadborough Brown glazed jug on ebay (yes we’re partial to a bit of Ebaying too) which she also uses as a flower vase. This though, is a glaze which we don’t currently make and we wanted an extra one for our archive.

The House to Home site is great, packed with ideas and inspiration, and it’s the online home for a diverse group of leading interiors magazines from Homes & Gardens and Country Homes & Interiors to Style at home and Living etc – take a look by clicking here. &nbsp

Vintage Pottery Enquiries

I must apologise to the people who write to us hoping for information about items of pottery produced over the past 60 years by the other potteries in Rye – now ALL CLOSED.

We try to give you any information we do have, but as they were all separate businesses,  albeit mainly opened by ex-employees of Rye Pottery, I am afraid it means we have only a limited amount of  hard facts at our disposal.

Biddy

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A Mid-Century Rye Pottey Cassic – Miss Simplicity

We’ve been looking on the web and spotted there’s one of our popular Mid-Century Classics for sale on ebay – a vintage MISS SIMPLICITY bottle. These bottles in 2 sizes were originally used for Oil and Vinegar.

They were designed by Wally’s brother Jack Cole in the early-mid 1950’s, not as stated in the text for the one for sale on ebay, by Marjorie Cole. Marjorie was Jack’s wife and she produced some very collectable Pottery dolls in the 50’s – just not this one!

A very, very few were made and production had stopped by the early 60s, but we have traced about 20 of these very charming one-offs. Sadly Marjorie in later years destroyed any she could lay her hands on. Jack did not really like his Miss Simplicity, (we have this in a letter on file in the archive) but despite his artistic misgivings she was without doubt a very popular piece at the time and still with collectors today.

We recently rediscovered the long-forgotten moulds for Miss S while trawling through our Mid-Century archives. We’ve been working on plans to revitalise and refresh some of our classic pieces and designs from this period, and Miss Simplicity is such a favourite for us that she’s certain to be part of that. So far, we’ve decided she will be reborn in the 21st Century with a fixed head that faces in a different direction! Next up is the decoration development stage. To the right you can see some samples we’ve been working on – absolute one-offs that a handful of collectors have been lucky enough to snap up in our shop in Rye.

But there are lots more decoration ideas we’re working on, so watch this space, because her outfit’s not finalised yet. When we decide on the first design to officially enter production we’ll be sure to let you know here.

If you want to be one of the first to find out when Miss Simplicity is available to buy, visit our shop in Rye every, single day … or alternatively just sign up for our newsletter at the top right corner of the site.

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Vintage Sussex Pigs

Vintage Sussex Pigs

Today (31st October 2011) Tarquin has been asked to help identify an early 20^thcentury “Sussex Pig” for a collector, but the consensus from all the local experts was that it was nothing to do with Rye. Too many things did not match up, colour of the glaze, the lettering technique and of course no basemark at all. It looked as if it was cast from a mould so beware there could be more about!

Note to the wary: Pre war Sussex Pigs were all thrown by hand & not made in a mould.

Here at Rye Pottery we do not reproduce pre-war pieces and any post-war designs we do introduce always have our current Rye Pottery mark, or “back stamp” as we call it in the trade, to make sure there can be no confusion.

>> We hope one day to add more about the various marks used to identify Rye Pottery in the future, but in the meantime, click here to find out how our backstamp and initialling systems work – both now and in years past.

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