Victor Skellern

Victor G. Skellern[1] (1909–1966) was a British ceramics designer and stained glass producer who was the art director at Wedgwood from 1934 to 1965. He helped to modernise Wedgwood, and his design work was a factor in the company's resurgence after 1935. He was also known for employing well-known designers from outside the company. Skellern's ceramics designs were exhibited at Grafton Galleries (1936) and the Britain Can Make It exhibition (1946) in London. Some of his designs are now on display at the V&A Museum, Yale Center for British Art, Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences and the Wedgwood Museum. His design "Strawberry Hill", with Millicent Taplin, was awarded the Council of Industrial Design's Design of the Year Award in 1957.

Biography

Skellern was born in 1909,[2][3] in Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire.[2] From 1923,[4] he worked in design for Wedgwood at the Etruria Works, under the supervision of John Goodwin, while studying art at the Burslem and Hanley Schools of Art, where he was tutored by Gordon Forsyth and Percy Lloyd.[2] His earliest design for the company is documented in 1929.[5] He then studied stained glass with Edward Bawden at the Royal College of Art (1930–34).[2][6] Information on his stained glass is limited; he painted the "Potland" panel in 1933, once in the Stoke-on-Trent Museum,[7] and exhibited a stained-glass window in 1936.[8]

In 1934, he rejoined Wedgwood as the company's art director, replacing Goodwin on his retirement, becoming the first person to hold the post with a formal education in design.[2][6] He remained in the position for the rest of his career, at first at the Etruria site and from 1940 at the new Barlaston factory.[2] He is credited with helping to modernise Wedgwood.[9] This included collaborating with Wedgwood's production director Norman Wilson to develop novel glazes,[2] as well as developing high-quality transfer printed patterns[10] and advocating for their wider use.[11] His design work has been cited as one of the reasons for the company's resurgence after 1935.[12] He also developed Wedgwood's use of well-known designers from outside the company, including Keith Murray,[lower-alpha 1] Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Rex Whistler and Laurence Whistler.[6][10]

He was an associate of the Royal College of Art and a fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists.[3][4] Skellern retired in 1965, and died the following year.[2]

Ceramics designs

In the 1930s, Skellern created Art Deco ware including "Persian Ponies", "Forest Folk" and "Seasons", in collaboration with other in-house designers such as Millicent Taplin.[10] His early work features in Forsyth's 1936 book, 20th Century Ceramics.[13] His 1930s tableware designs were reasonably inexpensive[14] and targeted at relatively young purchasers with "some taste but no money".[15] He remained in charge of the design department through the Second World War, designing "Victory Ware", a utilitarian range in earthenware described as "highly practical" and "austere".[9] His notable post-war designs include "Strawberry Hill" (around 1957), with Taplin, a particularly popular design for printed and gilded bone china, which received one of the earliest Council of Industrial Design's Design of the Year Award in 1957.[9][16][17]

Cheryl Buckley describes the work of Skellern and other male Wedgwood designers of the period, including Murray, Ravilious and Wilson, as "simple, relatively unadorned, and rectilinear";[14] though she characterises it as more Modernist than that of women designers including Taplin, Star Wedgwood and Daisy Makeig-Jones, she also notes that Skellern's designs reflect traditional as well as modern influences.[14][18] Diane Taylor considers the works of Skellern, Taplin and Star Wedgwood, another Wedgwood in-house designer, to present a "coherent stylistic approach... based upon simplicity and restraint".[6]

Skellern's designs were exhibited at Grafton Galleries in London in 1936,[6] and at the Council of Industrial Design's Britain Can Make It exhibition in London in 1946.[19][20] Several of his designs are preserved in the permanent ceramics collection of the V&A Museum, including "Forest Folk" (1934),[21] "Persian Pony" (1939),[22] "Asia" (1956),[23] "Lincoln" (1956),[24] "Strawberry Hill" (1957),[16] and "Avocado" (1959).[25] Examples of his designs are also preserved at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut,[26] the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences in Sydney,[27] and the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston.[28]

References
  1. Murray was first employed by Wedgwood as a freelance designer in 1933, but Skellern continued the association until 1936, when Murray started to plan the company's new factory at Barlaston.[6]
  1. "Report on the competition of industrial designs, 1928", Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 77 (3969): 128, 1928, JSTOR 41358122
  2. Victor Skellern (1909–66), Wedgwood Museum, retrieved 18 January 2021
  3. Casey, 20th Century Ceramic Designers in Britain, p. 179
  4. "Victor Skellern ARCA", Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, 2011, retrieved 18 January 2021
  5. Plate hand-painted by Victor Skellern – 1929, Wedgwood Museum, retrieved 19 January 2021
  6. Diane Taylor (1994), "Keith Murray, Architect and Designer for Industry", Twentieth Century Architecture (1): 45–54, JSTOR 41859419
  7. Correspondence, Archives Hub, retrieved 18 January 2021
  8. "Stained Glass Window", Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, 2011, retrieved 18 January 2021
  9. Jonathan Woodham (2016), "Josiah Wedgwood & Sons (established 1759)", A Dictionary of Modern Design, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780191762963
  10. Andrew Casey (2001), "Ceramics at the Festival of Britain 1951: Selection and Objection", The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 – the Present (25): 74–86, JSTOR 41809315
  11. Alan Swale (2008), "Screen Printed Transfers: Their impact on the decoration of ceramic wares 1946–2002", The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 – the Present (32): 54–71, JSTOR 41809397
  12. Gordon Campbell, ed. (2006), "Wedgwood", The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195324945
  13. Amy Gale, "Review: 20th Century Ceramic Designers in Britain by Andrew Casey; Susie Cooper: A Pioneer of Modern Design by Ann Eatwell, Andrew Casey", Studies in the Decorative Arts, 11: 120–124, JSTOR 40663087
  14. Cheryl Buckley (1984), "Women Designers in the English Pottery Industry, 1919–1939", Woman's Art Journal, 5 (2): 11–15, doi:10.2307/1357960, JSTOR 1357960
  15. Buckley 2019, p. 59
  16. Strawberry Hill, V&A Museum, retrieved 16 January 2021
  17. Millicent Taplin (1902–80), The Wedgwood Museum, retrieved 15 January 2021
  18. Buckley 2019, p. 56
  19. Casey, 20th Century Ceramic Designers in Britain, p. 185
  20. "Alpine pink snow crystal coffee pot designed by Victor Skellern ARCA, MSIA, and made by Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Ltd. Shown at the Britain Can Make It exhibition in 1946", VADS, University for the Creative Arts, retrieved 19 January 2021
  21. Forest Folk, V&A Museum, retrieved 19 January 2021
  22. Persian Pony, V&A Museum, retrieved 18 January 2021
  23. Asia, V&A Museum, retrieved 18 January 2021
  24. 'Lincoln' shape, V&A Museum, retrieved 18 January 2021
  25. Avocado, V&A Museum, retrieved 18 January 2021
  26. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, William Shakespeare commemorative ceramic mug, 1964, Yale Center for British Art, retrieved 18 January 2021
  27. 'Persian Ponies' coffee pot, Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, retrieved 18 January 2021
  28. Search: Victor Skellern, Wedgwood Museum, retrieved 19 January 2021

Sources

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