Titian's Iconic Tiki Dish S 105

This is one of Titian's more iconic pieces of folk-art kiwiana. This sits alongside the famous Wahine Toby Jug as perhaps the most well-known of Cameron Brown's souvenir ware with Maori themes. When considering these pieces, these days we need to point out that they were produced with minimal Tangata Whenua input. They are products of their own time (1950s and 60s) and hopefully can be enjoyed for what they are - joyful, though unreflective celebrations of New Zealand's important Maori dimension by a Pakeha craftsman who liked and admired Maori culture.

The three on the right are all Titian tiki dishes, and the one on the left is the Crown Lynn Wharetana equivalent, put here by way of comparison. I will mention a few more interesting facts about the second lives of these objects, and the greater cultural significance they have assumed, when I put up the post on the famous Wahine Toby Jug. The latter is now used in New Zealand schools as a teaching resource for cultural appropriateness. 

Here I just want to highlight a couple of points for collectors about these tiki dishes. Firstly, the moulds come in two different forms - first generation and second generation. They can be distinguished by the first generation products being slightly smaller and not having the in-mould makers mark and number on the reverse (only a mark Titian or Titian Studio scratched into a slash of green or black). The air hole on the back is smaller and in a slightly different position as can be seen here:

First Generation mould on right c.1950s; second generation moulds centre and left c.1960s

The interesting thing about the second generation tiki dishes, which were given the mould number S 105 (Souvenir number 5), is that at some stage they began receiving their own special black underglaze stamped marks. The Maori Mere form also had its own special mark similar to this. 

These are pure Kiwiana whatever complex cultural baggage they carry these days. Iconic and again, very much in a folk art tradition. Enjoy!  

The Mystery of the Marine Plate

Several years before Cameron Brown's death in 2002 (see the following link to read his NZ Herald Obituary:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=2848145 ), Mary Morrison interviewed him a number of times. Mary is the probably the expert on Titian. Among her aims was to establish what some of the earlier and rarer objects he produced may have been. Cameron Brown tantalisingly recalled making a plate with a nautical theme in very small numbers. Is this it?

This small dish is moulded in relief, airbrush decorated and the details hand finished in fine black lines. The border takes the form of a ships wheel. It has the feel of the mid-1950s about it, although I can't be sure. Until recently I was in little doubt that this was the plate Cameron Brown was referring to. However, a larger relief decorated and painted plate has come to light and was sold at auction in Auckland not long ago. A picture of this on can be found here: http://img.carters.com.au/164019.jpg 

What do you think? I think both of them are probably Titian. This is one of those numerous interesting obscure details of Titian production that is so rewarding for the collector. Again I want to emphasis the folk art character of these souvenir pieces of Titian - so different from what Crown Lynn was all about.

Lace Glaze/Crackle Glaze

The first post on Titian's excellent art glazes deals with what Cameron Brown called his "Lace glaze". Other people know it as a crackle glaze. However, because Titian's "Leather glaze" is also a crackle glaze, we'll continue to call this glaze "Lace".

The production of this distinctive glaze involved first applying a colour glaze slip and then a thick white overglaze that hardened, shrank and cracked when fired, while the underglaze became molten, ideally producing an even all-over textured effect. These pots are a joy to hold because of this textured, tanned stingray skin-like result.

This glaze is most commonly found as white on black. For a reason not known to me, these white on black pots were most commonly given a rose-pink interior glaze. This may have been because the contract for the production of these pieces stipulated that they should have this pink interior, although this is only a guess. It is much more difficult to find white on blacks with a plain white interior.

Oddly, the other lace glaze colours, which are much less common, were all given plain white interiors, with the exception of the blues, which were also glazed blue inside. These colour schemes include a delicious white on rhubarb-red, white on cobalt blue, white on sage green, and white on lemon yellow.

GLAZES

Rhubarb Red: Glaze sample

Example: Form V.109 (Vase number 9)

Sage Green: Glaze sample

Example: Form KV. 102 (Ken Lord Vase number 2)

Lemon Yellow: Glaze sample

Example: Form KV. 100 (Ken Lord Vase 0)

Glaze Sample: Cobalt Blue

Example: Form S 202. (Sargoods Vase, number 2.)

Note that vases designed for Sargoods seem to have all been numbered in the 200s 

Some pots with Lace glaze were converted into lamp bases and can be seen in the following photo, where this has happened to a KV 100. In this case the fittings are polished copper which goes very well with the lemon curd glaze.

The other pot in the above photo is a large PV 111 which is 29.5 cm tall. (Paramount Vase number 11)

My personal favourite glaze is the White on Cobalt Blue.

The large vase in the above photo is one of the largest regular production vases put out by Titian, being 31 cm tall. Numbered V 113 (Vase number 13).

This is a glaze that for sheer decorative effect compares favourably, and is sometimes mistaken on Trademe, for mid century German art vases. However, many of these colour combinations and moulds were unique to Titian.

These are 60s mod glazes that are the product of New Zealand genius. Not European or American. Crown Lynn did nothing like them. They are so good they deserve to be as iconic as CL art vases, yet they still don't attract the interest CL products do.

The Fortune Teller by Sherwood

Perhaps the single most iconic piece produced in those early years at Waitakere - the experimental Sherwood years - was a large figurine called the Fortune Teller.

As with many things, there is more of a story here than initially meets the eye. The Fortune Teller was made in 1953, the year New Zealand became enthralled with everything royal. Cameron Brown modelled her on Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth II's grandmother. Elizabeth II's coronation was the happening thing at the time, and a Royal Tour of New Zealand was in the offing and much anticipated by the general public.

In New Zealand ceramic history, 1953 also saw the production of one of the most iconic (some say infamous)  pieces of Crown Lynn, also with a royal theme. At the time, the great Dutch designer Frank Carpay was employed by Crown Lynn, producing the now much sought-after Handwerk line of decorated art-house pottery. The design he came up with was a clean modernist line drawing on square plaque, of the young Queen wearing a shear silk gown through which one could distinctly make out a carefully rendered bosom replete with nipple. There is one in the Auckland War Memorial Museum's collection:
http://muse.aucklandmuseum.com/databases/image/dish-Handwerk-ceramics-61742-710744.jpg?730x530

By the standards of the day, Cameron Brown's royal gambit was only a touch more respectful, given that he was representing a dowager British Empress as an itinerant circus medium. Crucially, the style remains faithful to the potter's folk art style, eschewing the modernist take on the 1953 royal phenomenon executed by Carpay.

The colours of this object are among the best I've seen and the decoration among the most careful. It is said that Cameron Brown's wife, Dorothy sat for hours as he modelled the body, so he could get the posture and fall of the clothing just right (thanks newzealandpottery). This particular Fortune Teller can be identified as one of the first two or three produced because of the dainty ceramic earrings which were very fiddly to apply and apparently replaced on later models.

You can find images of a couple of later models from the collection of Manos at the website run by Ev and Heather, www.newzealandpottery.forumotion.net.

Sadly only about 20 Fortune Tellers were produced, making it one of the most desirable and collectable pieces of early Titian. The marks are shown below. The first is on the bottom and the second on the base around the back.

The Very Beginning: Sherwood Pottery, Waitakere

For the first post I thought I'd start at the very beginning -when Cameron and Dorothy Brown were setting up their first pottery in rural Waitakere in the late 1940s-early 1950s.

These first two pieces come from a time when production was still very small scale and experimental. The scope for giving free reign to Cameron Brown's sense of humour was therefore probably much greater - something implied in these two small objects.

These two ashtrays both have a bone china body with applied moulded decoration. The main body of the ashtray is a basic form that would come to be standard throughout the high years of Titian production. The mould later received the number S100 ("Souvenir 100"), though these ashtrays were made some years before the numbering system was put in place.

The Sherwood monkeys are so early that bits of grit have fallen onto the piece during firing and are rough when you run your finger over the top surface. The phrase "Oh What a Party!" has been inscribed in ghost sgraffito around the rim.

An interesting aspect of the applied monkeys' piece is the very early mark on its base.

The second ashtray is here because it is the first Sherwood piece listed, though not illustrated, in Gail Henry's 1999 book New Zealand Pottery, on page 165. This is the famous "Drunken Man" ashtray.

Well modelled given the limited tools and facilities Cameron Brown had at the time.

Other rare and early Sherwood pieces from the collection of Manos can be found online at the good website www.newzealandpottery.forumotion.net.

Blue Lustre Glaze c. mid 1960s

Mould number T103, second mould form (hollow base), 15x18 cm in size. This is a test photo.

Welcome to a blog celebrating New Zealand's Titian Studio Pottery

Titian Studio Pottery was a commercial pottery noted for its decorative ware, produced in the mid-twentieth century in New Zealand. For many years its repute in New Zealand was overshadowed by the work of the enormous company that would eventually take it over - the ubiquitous Crown Lynn. With the exception of a retrospective exhibition at the Auckland War Memorial Museum in 2004, little has been published on Titian's finer, interesting and sometimes, delightfully obscure aspects. To be sure, it received a reasonable treatment in both of Gail Henry (formerly Lambert)'s seminal books (1985 and 1999), which are currently the standard texts on the history of New Zealand commercial ceramics. However, much of the Brown family's work at Titian, particularly that of its late scion Cameron Brown, remains unknown to the wider collecting and potting community in New Zealand.

This blog aims to rectify, in small part, the gap that exists in the public's knowledge about this important pottery, its innovative glazes and the folk art aesthetic found in its important souvenir range, produced in the 1950s and 60s at a time when there was little tourism to far off New Zealand.

Some Crown Lynn forms, such as the Swan and the McAlpine fridge jug have become so iconic in recent years, that it scarcely seems possible to plug oneself into the New Zealand zeitgeist without possessing these two articles. For adroit interior decorators and design opinion makers they have become a symbolic shorthand for the essence of modern New Zealandness. This is an honour that some Titian forms could deservingly aspire to, were they but better known in this country.

I will post short articles occasionally, well illustrated with photos. As everyone knows, "pics" for a collector are the most helpful thing around. I'm not aiming to be comprehensive in my coverage of Titian. As at any pottery, much was produced there that was mediocre. Other pieces have been illustrated on the web elsewhere. This means that I'm not going to provide lists or photos of all the mould shape numbers, although there will be a bit of commentary on some aspects that are either hard to understand or a bit interesting. As all experienced collectors know, Titian's numbering system was not as simple or systematic as that at Crown Lynn.

In my view, Titian has two souls as far as a collector goes. The first is in its extraordinary range of good mid-century art glazes, the best of which are right up there with the best German and French art pottery of the same period. Therefore, photo spreads will concentrate on these glazes as exemplars of the work of Titian Studios.

Titian's second soul is to be found in its range of souvenir ware, produced as much for the domestic market as for overseas tourists. It was entirely different in character from the famous Wharetana Maori ware produced by its big competitor Crown Lynn. The style is much more that of the folk artist in its painted decorative and sgraffito work. Cameron Brown also designed his own transfers for use on ceramic articles, and these too are part of that story.

The aim is to compile a good resource for Titian and New Zealand pottery collectors, so here's hoping you enjoy the blog!