This is our 100th post – and we’re turning to one of our favourites – artist & illustrator, Kenneth Townsend. In particular we’re focusing on his ‘Menagerie‘ series of tiles. These tiles received a Design Centre award.

The ‘Menagerie’ series featured over 20 different animal designs. He also produced the ‘Horoscope’ and ‘London’ tile series.

A new Flickr Group celebrating the works of Kenneth Townsend has just been formed. You’re welcome to join and add your own images or just come and have a look!

If you’re interested in starting your own collection, they’re often available in vintage stores. They also come up for sale on eBay quite regularly.  Have a look at seller simoncurtis. He’s had quite a few of these tiles for sale recently – and has kindly allowed us to use some of his photos in this blog post.

We were out & about in Huddersfield the other day and took some photos of these amazing tiled mosaics.

They’re situated in a 1960s-built precinct development in the town centre- they really capture the era.

On the subject of tiles, we recently put this image on Flickr. It’s a 1960s tile by Platt depicting a prince on horseback with a hunting falcon – we absolutely love it! We’re planning on having it framed.

We got this vintage bird tile ready-framed which is very effective. We think it was made by Maw & Co. It reminds us of Lisa Larson in style. We bought it from Wowie Zowie in Chorlton. This shop is well worth a visit if you’re in Manchester – they have some lovely stuff, imaginatively displayed.

This large tile/plaque is indeed by Lisa Larson – she’s a real favourite of ours! It was designed for Gustavsberg of Sweden in the 1960s.

Here it is in its usual home on a shelf in our lounge.

Here’s another one of our vintage tiles in situ – this one’s Italian – it sits happily on our bathroom shelf. Here it is in close up.

The most recent addition to our little collection was picked up yesterday. It’s quite different to the others in the fact that it represents a real place – it depicts the Euromast in Rotterdam designed in the 1950s – we really like the modernist feel to it.

The final item in our burgeoning tile collection is by Kenneth Townsend. We featured it before in our Z is for… Zoo blog post.

The lion is an early piece from his Menagerie range. Hopefully we’ll be able to find some of his other animals to fill our shelves!

To mark the end of one year & the start of another, here’s a collection of some of our most popular photos we posted on Flickr in 2008.

Click on the links below to see them in more detail.

Happy 2009!

1. Recent purchases, 2. Vintage enamel teapot, 3. Vintage purple 1970s twin bell Westclox alarm clock, 4. 1950s biscuit tin (detail), 5. Vintage coffee pot collection, 6. Figgjo Flint ‘Daisy’ cup & saucer, 7. Vintage storage tins, 8. Vintage ‘Dolly Days’ coffee set, 9. Vintage painted serving tray, 10. Coffee for 2, 11. Still life in orange, 12. Vintage Denby Arabesque collection, 13. Hornsea mug collection, 14. Vintage Lundtofte stainless steel & rosewood coffee set, 15. Orange Felt Elephant, 16. Home Sweet Home, 17. Vintage dominoes, 18. Vintage pottery spoon rest, 19. This week’s haul, 20. Collection of vintage Staffordshire Pottery & Kiln Craft mugs, 21. On the line, 22. Cathrineholm ‘Lotus’ salt & pepper pots, 23. Collection of ‘cosy coaster’ mug cosies, 24. Vintage Cathrineholm enamel kettle, 25. Vintage hand crocheted bedspread, 26. vintage original silk screen print, 27. This weekend’s haul, 28. vintage pottery plate, 29. Glass Menagerie, 30. hand knitted ‘cosy coaster’, 31. Recent finds, 32. Vintage kitchen utensils, 33. Our vintage garden lounger, 34. Vintage Denby Pottery ‘Trees’ lidded soup bowl, 35. Collection of West German vases, 36. Picked up this week

We picked up this fabulous coffee set last weekend.

That made our minds up about what L should be for!

Danish company Lundtofte produced high quality, stainless steel pieces – predominantly kitchen & dining wares, but also some decorative household objects.

They used top quality materials and manufacturing techniques – stainless steel often combined with teak and rosewood.

There are some fantastic, mid-century modern designs to be found by designers such as Tias Eckhoff, Eric Herlow and Lone Sachs.

We have a few examples of Lundtofte for sale at the moment at H is for Home- have a look!

Additional image credits
modcats.com
Vintage retro
Modernity
Yahoo Japan (kealoha)

Amongst the items of fresh stock for next week we’ve got some lovely Cathrineholm pots & pans that we recently picked up.

This range of enamelware was designed by Grete Prytz Kittelsen in the 1950s.

Grete Prytz was born in Norway in 1917 to a famous, Oslo-based family of goldsmiths.

Between 1936 & 1941 she studied at the National College of Arts & Crafts. After graduating she went to work for the family firm designing jewellery and metalware.

Enamelling was a Norwegian speciality in the early years of the 20th century, a technique which Grete revived, drawing on the family’s expertise in this field. Characteristic of her designs were the abstract motifs and striking colours such as her Lotus range illustrated here.

There was an exhibition of her work at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst, Arkitektur og Design) in Oslo until the end of August 2008. There is also a book/catalogue to accompany the exhibition available here.

If you’re a collector or are interested in seeing more of this work have a look at the Lovers of Cathrineholm Designs Flickr group.

We recently posted a photograph of two ‘lava glazed’ vases on our Flickr page which has proved very popular. So we thought that we’d write a few words and share a few more photos about West German ceramics from the 1950s to the 1970s.

After a period of time being generally ‘out of fashion’ these amazing ceramics are being appreciated once more for their style and eccentricity. They are now regularly seen gracing the pages of design and interior magazines.

The range of colours, shapes, textures and sizes is mind-boggling!

Some pieces are hand-thrown, others are mass-produced, stock shapes. However, as with the Poole ‘Delphis’ Pottery range, even these stock shapes can be transformed by the textures and the individual glazes in every colour imaginable. Pieces range in size from 3 inches to well over 20 inches tall for the larger floor vases.

Impressed ‘thumbnail’ detailing

Frothing lava glaze

Incised decoration

No rules with colour combinations!

Typical base markings

A number of factories produced these characteristic ceramics – Baykeramik, Carstens, Dumler & Breiden, Jopeko, Roth, Ruscha and Scheurich to name but a few. Much has still to be learned about which company produced what. Some factories produced pieces with distinctive base markings such as the crossed swords of Dumler & Breiden, however the majority of pieces simply have serial number markings (often accompanied by ‘German’ or ‘W. Germany’). You may be lucky enough to find a piece with the original paper label, otherwise you’re in for a bit of detective work.

There hasn’t been a great deal published on West German ceramics from this period, however Fat Lava, by Mark Hill (from Amazon UK)is a good starting point – it outlines the main factories and is packed with good quality colour photos.

In fact, the book was written to accompany an exhibition of German pottery from this period held at King’s Lynn Arts Centre in 2006.

Another place to find out more is the GinFor’s Odditiques website. Also Outernational, fat-lava.com and An Seta Pottery.

The pots work well displayed in groups of either similar or contrasting colours. The larger floor vases look great as stand-alone pieces.

Our particular favourites are the fiery oranges and reds, particularly ones with the bubbling lava glazes. We’ve built up quite a collection but good examples are getting harder to find and prices are rising steadily.

Trio of small, red and brown West German vases, 4-6 inches tall

Trio of incised vases – classic 50s shapes

Blue vase with original Scheurich paper label

Huge floor vases

Provides striking accent colours

We hope you’ve enjoyed looking at some of our collection. Have a look at our West German Pottery Collectors group on Flickr to see some more examples from us and other members. If this blog has inspired you to start your own collection, then happy hunting!!

Vintage West German pottery & ceramics currently available at our H is for Home online shop