Moorcroft Pottery History - Part 2

Alert to the possibility of the loss of their designer, the Macintyre’s board had already begun to seek a replacement. The appointment of William Moorcroft in March 1897 heralded a return to their support of the Burslem School of Art and a long-held prediliction for local talent. The young designer brought with him not only innate ability, but also experience in ceramic processes and ceramic chemistry, both of which were to stand him in good stead for developing his designs and supervising their execution by the team around him.

 

William set to with gusto, taking early inspiration from chiefly English designers, like William Morris, and producing a range of new shapes for domestic wares and vases decorated with floral motifs, frets and diapers, to which the name Aurelian was given. He also made an early foray into the slip trailing (or tube lining) method pioneered at Macintyre’s by Barnard, with a range of tableware, eventually to be known as Dura Ware.

 

Promotion to Manager of the Ornamental Ware followed in 1898, whereupon Moorcroft acquired his own staff and workrooms and commenced work on Florian ware, using his own technique of slip trailing in combination with underglaze colour. His signature began to appear on pieces along with a new backstamp, although some overlap did occur with the Gesso Faience mark, creating some confusion among collectors through the years.

 

Moorcroft was given virtually a free hand to design, manufacture and experiment, and his philosophy for “organic” design quickly became the base upon which he would build his future work. He strongly disliked the stylised decoration of the hitherto popular Art Nouveau movement and leaned heavily towards designs in which decoration and shape achieved synergy. Ornament, he believed, should be used to complement form, never for its own purpose, and this, of its time, avant-garde approach established Moorcroft as a leading innovator of modern European style.

 

Moorcroft carried through his devotion to the organic into every aspect of manufacture – in every case possible pieces were thrown on a pottery wheel to allow natural development of shape. The white porcellanous body used had been developed to withstand high temperatures with each piece being fired twice or more at temperatures of at least 1100 degrees centigrade. All designs were drawn in the round by Moorcroft himself, enabling the pattern to be fitted to the shape of the piece and finished with ever more sophisticated use of the slip liner, serving the dual purpose of separating colour and creating a subtle relief finish. Metallic oxide-derived colours were applied on underglaze with the ultimate highly vitrified clear glaze topcoat enhancing their richness and depth.

 

While it cannot be emphasised enough that Florian ware and subsequent ranges were exclusively the product of the fertile mind of William Moorcroft – his control over manufacture and design was absolute – he was not a complete dictator! His team of decorators (highly trained students) were allowed, admittedly limited, artistic licence, with small individual touches often meeting with approval from their exacting task-master. Of course, this had the happy consequence of ensuring that no two pieces of Moorcroft were exactly alike – a quality which was to endear the work to the various art publications of the time and to the avid collector.

 

The Florian range was extremely successful, retailing at Tiffany’s of New York and Liberty of London within a year of its registration. While William Moorcroft always considered the Florian name specific to a particular range, Macintyre’s tended to use the term generically for all items produced by his department and thus it remained in common press and trade usage for many years.

 

The huge amounts of public approbation and press attention did little, however, to enhance the name of Macintyre’s and much to enhance that of their protégé. In giving Moorcroft huge freedom in his work, the Washington Works provided him with a magnificent platform on which to display his remarkable talent. While in the short term the factory appeared content to bask in reflected glory, this probably, ultimately, led to the demise of Macintyre’s ornamental pottery division, with no tangible prestige being attached to their own name. For the time being, however, the relationship flourished with awards coming thick and fast and continuing innovation of design keeping Moorcroft at the forefront of his field.

 

1904 saw the introduction of Flamminian ware or Red ware, its single luminous colour produced by the effect of the fire at a specific temperature, resulting in a design worlds away from the complexity of the popular work of William Morris or the Art Nouveau movement. Ruby Lustre also appeared around this period as an overlay lustre on previously popular patterns, notable Hazledene, a landscape design, and Claremont, a toadstool design.

 

The years 1905 – 1911 saw an outpouring of creativity from Moorcroft with new patterns incorporating a more dramatic drawing style and increasingly dark background work. Colours were allowed to spread beyond the confines of the slip trailing and merge to great atmospheric effect, a change that did not, initially, meet with universal approval.  Moorcroft Pottery History Part 3