Clarice Cliff

The Clarice Cliff, Art Deco & Design auction at Woolley & Wallis (26% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on March 20 included this rare 10in (25cm) vase, shape no 375, decorated in the Archaic pattern mirroring a capital design from a temple in Luxor.

Three-hundred lot sale of the Art Deco classic shows signs of the market returning to 1990s boom time

The typical Clarice Cliff ginger jar measures just under 9in (22cm) high and around 6in (15cm) wide.

It is 20 years ago that the auction record for Clarice Cliff was sent tumbling when an 18in (46cm) May Avenue charger sold for £34,000 at Christie’s South Kensington on May 14, 2003. Those were heady days indeed.

A film of artist potter Clarice Cliff’s (1899-1972) early life is now at cinemas and available via streaming services.

Auctioneer Will Farmer will move from the small to the big screen this autumn when he appears in a new feature film on the life of Clarice Cliff.

From 1932-34 Clarice Cliff was the art director for a project involving nearly 30 artists of the day to promote good design on tableware.

The latest Specialist Collectors’ Sale at Cuttlestones in Wolverhampton included a little bit of 20th century ceramics history.

MADAM – It was good to see Clarice Cliff featured in ATG No 2383. As mentioned, the pottery has had its ups and downs over the years and in any case ‘Clarice’ has always been a little ‘Marmite’.

Familiar striking shapes and bright colours retain a strong following despite a fall in demand from the 1980s-90s heyday.

A selection of five pieces of Clarice Cliff offered at different price levels at Woolley & Wallis on March 20 .

An American private collector bid £15,000 for a rare Clarice Cliff figure group at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.

Much of the Clarice Cliff pottery that finds its way into UK salerooms is relatively inexpensive. However, a clutch of pieces by the Staffordshire born and bred designer due to go under the hammer over the next few weeks will attract those in the hunt for scarcer works.

Stourbridge auctioneer Will Farmer held the first of his biannual Decades of Design sales at Fieldings (17.5% buyer’s premium) 12 years ago and rather wishes he had copyrighted the phrase – now almost a generic term for post-1860 dec arts sales.

The collection of Clarice Cliff formed by André Aerne, a voice professor at Butler University in the US who died last year, will be offered in an online sale at Christie’s this month.