This enlarged third edition of British Studio Potters’ Marks is a very welcome addition to our libraries. Ten years since the last edition was published and following the death of one of the original authors, Robert Fournier (1915-2008), Hazlewood has further enhanced this essential library reference tool. Consisting of an alphabetical listing of British potters’ marks and images thereof, each entry contains brief biographical detail together with past and present addresses of the potters as well as information about their type of work. Because ceramics is such a tactile medium, this weighty tome is an appropriate and fascinating vehicle for providing details of potters’ marks rather than having to check such details in online sites of which there are many and for which sometimes a subscription is required.
There are more than 1,000 new and updated entries in the extra 78 pages so that users can now easily find new and contemporary potters, especially as the criteria for inclusion are “that the potter has a studio or workshop address and has […] personally formed and fired the work”. This provides a delightful treasure trove of smaller and lesser known potters, who may not feature in any other reference works. The directory includes famous names in pottery, such as Hans Coper (1920-1981), Bernard Leach (1887-1979), Grayson Perry (b.1960-) and Lucie Rie (1902-1995). Among the youngest potters the reviewer could find with a quick browse are Jo Davies (b.1980-), Louisa Taylor (b.1980-) and Orli Ivanov (b.1983-).
The benefit of having this information all in one volume is that users can either look up the potter by name or if they have purchased or acquired recently a piece of pottery and are unsure of the name of the potter, they can look up the marks in one of the three indexes, which are divided in to 19 sections. The first index is Creatures (Sections 1-4) consisting of animals, birds, fish, sea creatures, shells, insects, snails and reptiles. Examples of these are the owls and ducks of Paul Bearne (1937-2000) and the penguin of Patrick Lester (b.1942-). The next is Monograms (Sections 5-7) containing initials as single letters, as symbols, monograms, forenames and marks other than initials or surnames. The final index is Signs, (Sections 8-19) which includes boats, ships, buildings, maps, flowers, crowns, shields, trees, hands, wheels and triangles among many others. Examples of these are a yacht by Peter Robinson (b.1952-) and a hand by Judith Rowe (b.1965-).
A revised work by Cushion (1994) and two works by the well-known antiques ceramics expert Godden (1991) and (1999) provide similar amounts of information on pottery marks, though the first one being pocket-sized is just over half the size of Hazlewood’s and the other two titles cover far fewer marks of British potters and do not include modern potters.
Priced at £60, this directory would make an affordable and essential purchase for reference sections of both academic and specialist art libraries as well as for local public libraries in the UK, but it is way beyond the wallets of most students of ceramics. It is good to see that there are so many potters active in Britain today continuing and developing the ceramic traditions of those who went before.
