Pottery Ladies. Miss Cooper, Miss Cliff, Miss Rhead and all the forgotten girls...... (Charlotte Rhead) - ACE154.2

A variety of ceramic objects – ashtrays, plates, vases, trademarks from Clarice Cliff, Susie Cooper, dinner services, egg-cups, etc. VOs of former pottery workers. Hand painting a plate. Paintresses explaining that the paint workers were the elite of the factory. Paintress demonstrating painting. Paintress describes the training: each kind of design was learned separately. Showing a highly decorated plate. Gordon Elliot – a ceramic historian, says that women worked in all parts of the pottery, particularly in painting, that they enjoyed a certain status in the pottery, though paintresses were never very well paid. Paintress (born 1893) talking about her working life. Photograph of her aged about fifteen. Started at Paul Marsden’s, then went to Bootes’ tile factory. View of tiled stairway. Paintress’s VO explains how she glazed different colours. Photographs of her and colleagues in the factory around 1910. Black and white film of potteries and chimneys in Stoke on Trent. Film of people picnicking in the 1920s. Elliot’s VO. Elliot. A piece of Rhead pottery. Paintress’s VO said Miss Rhead did "fancies", vases, etc., not dinnerware, was very shy, and very fond of cats. Joan Jackson, Charlotte Rhead’s biographer. Another Rhead vase, some flatware, jugs, etc. Paintress says that she first met Miss Rhead at Bootes and ran errands for her. Some of Rhead’s patterned tiles, including a set making a composite picture of cows in a field and a set making a bull in a butcher’s shop.