Visit http://claricecliff.com/home Clarice Cliff (19 January 1899 - 23 October 1972) was an English ceramic artist active from 1922 to 1963. She began as an apprentice potter. By reason of her talent and ability she became a ceramic artist, becoming the head of the factory artistic department. She also produced strictly artistic ceramics and became popular with the public and royalty alike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarice_Cliff The Cliff family moved to Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, from the Eccleshall area in about 1725. Cliff was born in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, England. When Clarice was born their home was on Meir Street on a terrace of modest houses. Cliff's father Harry worked at the local iron foundry in Tunstall, her mother Ann took in washing to supplement the family income, and they had seven children.[1] Cliff was sent to a different school from her siblings, and this perhaps prompted her more independent approach to her career, and her non-standard life style by Stoke-on-Trent standards. After school Cliff would visit aunts who were hand paintresses [2] at a local pottery company, and she also made models from papier-mâché at school.[3] At the age of 13, Cliff started working in the pottery industry. Her first work was as a gilder, adding gold lines on ware of traditional design. Once she had mastered this she changed jobs to learn freehand painting at another potbank,[4] at the same time studying art and sculpture at the Burslem School of Art in the evenings. In 1916, Cliff made the rather unusual decision to move to factory of A.J. Wilkinson at Newport, Burslem, to improve her career opportunities. This necessitated a lengthy journey to work. This was an unusual start to an unusual career; most young women in the Staffordshire Potteries were on 'apprentice wages', and having mastered a particular task, stayed with that to maximise their income. However, Cliff was ambitious and acquired skills in modelling figurines and vases, gilding, keeping pattern books and hand painting ware: outlining, enamelling (filling in colours within the outline) and banding (the radial bands on plates or vessels). In the early 1920s her immediate boss Jack Walker brought Cliff to the attention of one of the two factory owners, Colley Shorter, who managed it with his brother Guy. Colley Shorter was 17 years older than Cliff, and as well as playing a major role in nurturing her skills and ideas, he was later to be her husband. Clarice Cliff,ceramic,Ceramics,Art Deco,Art deco design,Art Deco ceramics,Royal Staffordshire Pottery,A.J. Wilkinson,Newport,Newport pottery,

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