A Creature Feature
Posted: September 15, 2011 Filed under: Random Retroness | Tags: Bay Keramik, Happy Feet, Kevin Graham, kitsch, metal mick, mick kirkby-geddes, owl money box, penguin, pottery, Steuler, West German Pottery 2 Comments »I don’t know what it is about animals and retro items – for some unknown reason, I just like anything that combines creatures and age. Usually, the more kitsch the better, but some of these would probably pass muster in more stylish homes.
Mick Kirkby-Geddes Penguin and Unknown
The penguin on the left was made by Mick Kirkby-Geddes (a.k.a. Metal Mick) for Aidan when he was a child. As a youngster, Aidan loved penguins (to be honest, he still does!) so the penguin was specially made for him by Metal Mick. We love it and it lives in our bedroom at the moment. The penguin on the right came from Germany. No idea who has made it! It looks like Happy Feet to me, which I don’t mind as it’s one of my favourite children’s films.
- Cartens
Aidan bought this gorgeous pot from Kevin Graham when we visited him in Germany this summer. The pot is by Carstens, and off the top of my head, I think it was designed by Gerda Heuckeroth (Kevin or Stuart will correct me, if I’m wrong!). It features stylised pictures of starfish and sharks.
CarstensI also quite like things that feature flowers, plants and other nature related things:Scheurich
Scheurich seem to be able to pull the ‘nature on pottery’ theme quite well:
Scheurich 271 and Otto 'Mushrooms'
I love the cherry print on this Scheurich pot and what do you think of those Otto mushroom teeny pots? Cherries and mushrooms aren’t a usual combination, but think here we can get away with it.
A post about creatures and nature wouldn’t be the same without some kitsch owl related paraphenalia. In this case, some owl-shaped pottery:
Retro Pottery Owls
The red one on the right is made by Steuler, but I’m not sure about the one on the left. It could be a Bay Keramik, it has that look about it.
It’s difficult to choose a favourite out of all of these things. I’m sure even Aidan would be hard-pressed to choose between his Metal Mick penguin, Carstens pot and Otto mushrooms…
Pop Pots
Posted: August 30, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: Carstens, ceramics, fohr, Jopeko, pop art, pottery, Steuler, west german ceramics, West German Pottery Leave a comment »With the promise of some chocolate brownies, I managed to get Aidan to take some pictures for me of our poppiest pottery:
There’s a mixture of Steuler, Jopeko, Carstens and Fohr here, but somehow they seem to work together. Many of these were found on the latest trip: the giant Steuler is one of our best finds yet! The little owl is also a particular favourite - Aidan didn’t know it was Steuler, but I did thanks to the lovely Claudia who emailed me a picture of her gorgeous green version a while ago.
Only a couple more days to go now until I’m back to work. This summer holiday has absolutely flown by! I’ve still got my Masters essay to finish and all of my planning to do for the new school term. However, today I have been thwarted by the ridiculous delivery system by ASOS – last week I was furious when I waited in all day, only for them to either not knock loudly enough or not at all… I received an email at 11.30 saying that they’d tried to deliver my parcel but no-one was home. Er, yes I was! Quite, quite cross to say the least. Anyway, it’d better turn up today as promised or I’ll be on the warpath. Well, as much of a warpath as you can be on when you can only contact the companies involved via webforms.
Is it too early to eat a chocolate brownie?
Related articles
- Striking Steuler (littleowlski.wordpress.com)
- Cue Carstens (littleowlski.wordpress.com)
A Grey Day – The West German Pottery Way
Posted: August 12, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: black, Carstens, dumler and breiden, fat lava, glaze, grey, jasba, Roth, Ruscha, Scheurich, Steuler, vase, west german ceramics, West German Pottery, white 1 Comment »
Bay Keramik 224-20
Despite the title of this post, I’ve actually had two pretty good days, busy but productive. I’m referring to the weather with the title! Rain, drizzle, precipitation… whatever you want to call it; it has rained, rained and rained today. I left early yesterday morning with some gigantic parcels in tow to post before going to a house second viewing (exciting!), but alas! The Post Office was closed due to a power failure in the Glossop Co-op which is where it’s situated. Having lugged the parcels that far, they then had to come to the house viewing with me, causing eyebrows to be raised. Following that, they had to be taken back home due to a lack of power still… my arms were certainly aching by the time they finally got posted later yesterday afternoon. Today, it’s yet another grey, overcast day…
Anyway, because of the manky weather, I thought I’d do a grey, black and white themed pottery post. And also because it’s one of the few combinations of colours that I’ve not featured yet.
It’s quite a process to go through all of these and add the names and makers to each picture. We’re leaving for Germany this evening, so if I get chance then I’ll do some more. Otherwise, I’ll have to keep coming back to it! If you happen to know the maker in the meantime, feel free to click the image and leave a comment. Share and share alike, I think!
Striking Steuler
Posted: July 6, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Cari Zalloni, ceramics, glaze, mid century, retro, Space Age, Steuler, vintage, West German Pottery 3 Comments »
Zyklon by Zalloni - Courtesy of Kevin Graham
Now the regulars of the WGP world who frequent my blog will probably think, “Finally!” when they read that heading. I asked aeons ago if anybody had any fantastic Steuler pieces that I could share via this site, as I wanted to do a post to show off the fantastic variety of pieces that Steuler created. In my mind, I’m always thinking about those people who, like me a few years ago, didn’t really know anything about West German Pottery; where to start, what to collect, who made good quality pieces and so on. So, as much as anything, I think if anybody does stumble upon my blog, it would be good to share information where I can.
Enough babble: onto the pots! Some of these are mine and Aidan; but many are from other collectors who have very kindly allowed me to use their photographs.
Thanks to Kevin Graham at the Pottery and Glass forum for the following information about Steuler. Kevin is in the process of researching and writing a biography about one of Steuler’s most prominent designers, Cari Zalloni.
Steuler was founded in 1917 and closed in 1996. Steuler produced with a reddish clay up until the early 1960s, using one mark, the switched to a new mark,and white clay for their production from the 60s onwards, possibly as they geared up for mass production techniques. (Pottery and Glass forum)
One way to really tell the Zalloni designed pieces is to look out for strong, clean lines and a striking design; bright, vibrant colours and unusual curves. They are very much in keeping with the ‘Space Age’ era to my eye:
Courtesy of Richard @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fatlava1/
Incidentally, Richard has a gorgeous set of photographs over at his Flickr site, featuring not just his beautiful Steuler pictures, but a whole range of West German Pottery. Make sure you take a visit.
Micha Kempf, Claudia, Frank Geesink and Julian Shimmin also sent me some photos, which you can find in the Gallery above. I think they beautifully show the range of glazes and designs you can find by Steuler.
Perhaps my favourite though, is this little fellow sent to me by Claudia:
Courtesy of Claudia
Thanks again to the gorgeous pictures from everyone who sent me them.
More information about Steuler can be found:
The Ebay Blitz on West German Pottery!
Posted: May 5, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: Carstens, ceramics, Ebay, pottery, retro lamp, Roth, Scheurich, Songden, Steuler, vintage, West German Pottery, West Germany 1 Comment »Aidan has uploaded a massive amount of pots onto his Ebay account. If you’ve not done so already, go and check out some of the gorgeous pots he has for sale.
Look for them here…
There are more, including some lovely Roth and Scheurich pieces. But can I find the pictures for them within Aidan’s folder system…? No.
West German Pottery White Collection
Posted: April 9, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: Cari Zalloni, ceramics, glaze, Scheurich, Steuler, vase, vintage, West German, west german ceramics, West German Pottery, white 2 Comments »We’ve had the brown collection. Now here’s the white collection:
West German Pottery White Collection
Many Scheurich pieces, a little Steuler (our first Cari Zalloni piece) and a cheeky little Wade who’s crept in somehow…
Birthday and Booting…
Posted: April 28, 2010 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: Bay, ceramics, Schlossberg, Steuler, West German, West German Pottery 5 Comments »Well, last week it was my birthday and now I’m another year closer to thirty… I don’t mind so much, but it is a slightly strange feeling. I keep expecting somebody to stop me and say, “Right, the game is up. You’re not really [insert age here]; you’re really sixteen. Stop pretending to be an adult!” This despite the fact that I have a ‘real’ job and own a house… Ah well, even my great nan (who is in her eighties) claims she doesn’t feel any different to when she was in her teens.
Anywho… Needless to say, I might have received a few West German pots for my birthday from a certain somebody:
Bay 96 14
Bay 96 20
These were probably my two favourites that he got me. However, the other two were pretty good too…
Bay 64 17
I think this following one is a Schlossberg, but I’m willing to be corrected:
My wonderful boyfriend made me the most amazing catalogue for West German pottery. He’s spent the last few months making it and it is truly amazing! I’m so impressed with his dilligence on it: it’s nearly six hundred pages long and covers factories, forms, glazes, identification and features. It’s already helped me to identify some pots we’ve already got that we’d wrongly attributed.
The weekend before my birthday, we went to a car boot sale in Hope, near Castleton in the Peak District. There was one stall in particular which was full of all the retro, vintage and studio pottery we could think of! I’m not going to post up pictures of some of it; as Aidan wants to give some away as presents to various people. However, here are two pots we bought from stall:
Steuler 140/15
I really like the blue colour on that Steuler piece. Aidan likes the metallic bronze on this one:
Bay 72 14
I Used To Know What I Wanted To Say…