Poole Pottery is a vast topic with well over 100 years of production, so we’ll narrow it down a bit – and concentrate on one of our favourite ranges.

The arrival of Robert Jefferson, as resident designer in the late 1950s, took Poole in new directions with  regards to shapes and glazes.

The Delphis range was one of the developments.

Working with Guy Sydenham, the gulf between studio pottery and commercial production could be bridged, resulting in this exciting, dynamic range.

Delphis was launched at an exhibition at Heal’s in 1963 and subsequently at stores throughout the UK.

Abstract designs & bright colours were the characteristic features.

The range was a great success both at home & overseas and was increasingly marketed with the emphasis on the hand painted element.

A standard range of shapes was used with individual painters responsible for the free-flowing designs. There were approximately 50 artists working on the range including names such as Andrée Fontana, Beverley Mantel, Cynthia Bennett, Lynn Gregory, Ross Sommerfelt, Janet Laird, Thelma Bush and Carol Holden.

Our own particular favourite is Carol Cutler (Kellett) who worked between 1969 & 1976.

_{Carol Cutler’s painter’s mark}

Production of Delphis continued until the late 1970s.

Other similar Poole ranges to look out for from this period are Aegean, Ionian and Atlantis.

_{Aegean range fish plate}

To see a huge range of colour photos of all the different Poole pottery visit the Poole Pottery Collectors Club website.

There’s also a wonderful book that looks at Delphis in detail. It includes a full list of the Delphis painters and their marks. It actually covers the entire history of Poole Pottery – all the ranges & designers involved. It is simply entitled Poole Pottery by Hayward & Atterbury. It’s available from both www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.com It contains lots of great, full-colour reference photographs.

Also, check out the Poole Pottery Flickr group we started up. Please feel free to join up & add any photos of your own!

We sometimes have a few pieces of Poole, including Delphis, for sale at H is for Home.

Some of you may have noticed that it’s been longer than usual between blogs. We’ve had a very busy week, including a magazine photo shoot at our house – all very exciting! More about that to follow soon…