Posts from the ‘Albert & Glynn Colledge’ Category

Mar 28

Denby Cheviot

This impressive and now very rare design is from the Cheviot range by Glynn Colledge at Denby, mid 1950’s.

I think this is one of the most impressive modernist designs from the hand of Glynn Colledge. It was released simultaneously with another outstanding series called Tigo Ware, designed by Tibor Reich.

I was fortunate to come across the piece below several years ago on eBay, but haven’t seen a piece since.

Denby Cheviot

About “Cheviot” the book “Denby Pottery 1809-1997”, Hopwood:

Cheviot was quite different from any of Glyn’s previous work. It reflected his awareness of the latest design trends and demonstrated his flexibility…..Glynn with his love of colour and decoration, could not resist embellishing Cheviot. He created one version with a matt finish, in black, dark grey or khaki, which was covered in finely drawn, abstract sgraffito, often including crystals, stars or simple stylised leaves. A second highly coloured version was glazed in yellow, blue or lilac with black tube lining, or in red or green with white tube lining. Some patterns were geometric, some herring bone and others were organic.

Denby Cheviot – Image via thesaleroom.com

Below is an image from the Hopwood Denby book, of a group of Cheviot Vases – featuring the most outstanding pieces from the series. Love to get hold of even one of these superb pieces of mid-century design one day!

Denby Cheviot Group – Hopwood

Oct 30

Denby Romany

The Denby design “Romany” is from the 1970’s – but I don’t have an exact date.

Apparently this striking glaze came about from an accidental mixing of the wrong proportions in a glaze recipe – and when it was fired and shown to Glynn Colledge he loved the effects of the glaze with its runs and thicker brown areas on top of the “old gold” glaze…so it went into production as a range.

It has that very 1970’s handmade feel about it, and is yet still contemporary – especially with some of the forms such as the bowl in the first image. Some of the pieces of Romany display lovely colour runs in the glaze, and the colour can vary from piece to piece quite a bit as you can see below – but this all adds to the charm of the design I think.

The Romany glaze has a lovely satiny smooth feel to the touch as well. Denby pottery is also all very tough stoneware – so if cared for it will easily last for decades.

Jul 30

Denby Ode

Denby Ode (glaze and pattern) was created by Glynn Colledge, issued by Denby in 1961 and in production until about the late 1970’s.

I love the colour of the satin-matt mustard glaze – referred to by Denby as Antique Gold. The colour also matches the stoneware body really well, and contrasts with the bright white interior of many of the forms. The plates from “Ode” are stunning pieces of design with their beautiful Greek key sgraffito design in white.

Gill Pemberton tells me that the forms for this series were actually designed by Kenneth Clark who also designed the Gourmet range – a shape that was later used for Studio, as well as Ode and Echo (a blue version of Ode).

We don’t hear much of Kenneth Clark (1922 -2012) these days, but click on the link on his name above to read about his importance to British Design in the 20th century.

He took a domestic product that had become boring in its ubiquity and transformed it with technical knowledge and design flair into a vehicle of delight and usefulness. His designs honoured the traditions of studio pottery while incorporating the technical innovations of commercial potteries