Art Deco pottery is ceramic ware made in the Art Deco style of the 1920s and 1930s, with bold colours, geometric patterns, stylised flowers and landscapes, and angular or stepped shapes. It includes tea and coffee services, vases, wall masks, figures and decorative chargers.
Britain produced a remarkable quantity of Deco pottery, much of it hand-painted in the Staffordshire Potteries. Clarice Cliff's Bizarre ware for Wilkinson and Newport is the best known, alongside Susie Cooper's elegant tablewares, Carlton Ware's lustre ranges and the work of Shelley, Myott and Poole Pottery. Keith Murray's architectural designs for Wedgwood showed a more restrained modernist approach. On the Continent, factories such as Goldscheider in Vienna made figures and wall masks, and French makers produced boldly glazed art pottery. Value depends on pattern, shape, rarity and condition, with chips, crazing and restoration all reducing desirability. Collectors should check backstamps and painted details carefully, as some popular designs, Clarice Cliff in particular, have been reproduced or faked. A group of vivid Deco pieces makes a lively display on a mantelpiece or dresser.
