In 1947, Samuel William Noble established a small commercial pottery studio in Mosman on Sydney’s lower north shore. The pottery was located in the rear of a shop in Clifford Street, and it was from here that he began a business producing small slipware souvenir cream jugs decorated with Australian flora and fauna.
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From 1947 to 1971, one of the world’s most famous artists designed 633 different editions of colourful and uniquely shaped pottery. At the time, the art world was sceptical; it was seen as a waste of Picasso’s talent, and worse – commercially motivated. But opinions have changed and museums are now exhibiting Picasso ceramics.
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He was a hugely talented silversmith, but it’s not his silver for which Jean Després is best known; it’s his bold and uncompromising jewellery, with its focus on obviously industrial shapes.
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Serendipity played an important role in the success of Bernard Moss. Although he and wife Moreen were both undeniably talented, if it hadn’t been for a chance encounter in a department store the world may never have enjoyed the novelty ‘nodder’.
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Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne formed one of the most innovative and dynamic duos in 20th century art. Known since the 1960s as ‘Les Lalanne’, they took inspiration from the natural world, charming celebrities and surrealists alike and their creations now make millions of dollars at auction.
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Internationally renowned and widely collected, hailed as a transformative genius… Hans Coper is generally considered to be one of the most important British studio potters of the 20th century. But would you pay more than $1m for a pot that was made just fifty years ago?
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The British brand of G Plan evokes a sense of sophisticated design and craftsmanship, manifest in pieces that a generation of homemakers aspired to owning. These enduring qualities that so appealed to customers in the 1950s and ’60s still makes G Plan pieces stand out to today’s aspiring mid century collectors.
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Nylon was the first man-made fibre to be developed entirely in a laboratory. Its official name was Polymer 66 and when it was applied to stockings it was called No-Run, but the problem was that unfortunately the early stockings tended to have a lot of runs… a new name was needed. Some company wordplay resulted in the word ‘nylon’ and it stuck.
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The coffee industry is one of the world’s most valuable and the second most traded commodity… Debra Palmen explains why so many people love it and its beautiful and functional collectables.
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Miriam Haskell was an elegantly dressed businesswoman who specialised in the finest handmade jewellery; Hollywood star Joan Crawford became such a fan it’s said she collected nearly every piece of jewellery produced in the 1950s and ’60s.
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Designer furniture from the 1030s to the 1960s has become increasingly collectable over recent decades. While many have heard of the famed duo Charles and Ray Eames – considered by aficianados to be the most influential designers of the century – there are other mid-century furniture designers whose stars are firmly on the rise.
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Writing in his online blog, UK antiques expert, author and Antiques Roadshow aficianado Mark Hill said: “If you asked the average collector to name an important British glass designer, most would say Geoffrey Baxter and if you them asked them to name his most iconic range it would have to be the Landmark, a textured range of 1966, released a year later”.
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In 2008, Bonhams in London announced the end of their dedicated studio ceramics sale. Christie’s and Sotheby’s had already dropped their specialist auctions; the ‘Big Three’ decided instead to include studio ceramics in their new ‘design’ sales and the smaller British auction houses were able to step in and work a market that’s witnessed a steady rise at every level.
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Innovative and iconic, Parker Furniture was at the forefront of Australian interior design for nearly half a century, bringing modernist style to homes across the country and making mid century design available to all.
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While he was still at college, Ossie saw a Pierre Cardin collection in Paris where chiffon dresses were cut in what he described as a ‘spiral line’. In 1967 he cut a range of chiffons and crepes on the straight and turned them to fit the body on the bias, to replicate the same ‘spiral line.’ At the end of 1968 he introduced his famous Nude Look …
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The term ‘West German pottery’ essentially describes the pottery produced in West Germany between 1949 and 1990: from the 1950s until the 1970s, over 100 pottery and porcelain companies and studio potters were actively producing art pottery in West Germany, in an explosion of artistic creativity and colour.
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They’ve captured history in the making, from world wars to space flight. International triumphs, coronations and royal weddings sit beside great disasters and, sometimes, just a family picnic immortalised on film. Perhaps that’s why the camera captures our interest and intrigues us.
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Let’s be honest, a Christmas tree can look pretty dull until it’s covered in all those wondrous coloured fairy lights and decorations. But where did Christmas lights originate? Who thought of the lighting up of Christmas…?
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The Italian-born son of a Maltese embroidery designer, Andrew Grima (1921-2007) opened a jewellery emporium in the conservative London shopping district of Jermyn Street in 1966, despite having never formally trained for the jewellery trade and having no interest in classical design.
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Jewellery was a male-dominated art form until well into the 20th century, at least in appearance. Many women probably worked behind the scenes, but some entered into fruitful partnerships and they were able to make their mark, even in Victorian and Edwardian times. In these more egalitarian days, a significant number continue to do so.
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In 1920, a young Italian immigrant founded one of the UK’s most successful furniture design companies – despite the fact that he had left school with only rudimentary English and no design experience.
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When we started buying in Sweden all those years ago, it was a virtually untouched source. Today is very different-Swedish Art Deco and mid century design has exploded onto the world scene of collectors, interior designers and people wanting beautiful, unique pieces for their home. Over the last five years we’ve seen a huge demand.
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For retro collectors, the top-selling areas are in the period from around 1920–1980, from the beginning of the Art
Deco period up to the latter 20th century. Rather than collecting everything in a particular range, retro buyers tend to pick out what looks good to them – what fits their style or décor – and they tend to look for outstanding, quirky or unusual examples.
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There’s a retro craze going on right now and we bet you’ve never heard of it: the original motion lamp…
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A master of cut and construction and obsessed with the perfect fit, Balenciaga was capable of cutting material, assembling a creation and sewing it by hand. He counted among his clients the Spanish royal family and aristocracy who summered in San Sebastian and wintered in Madrid – until he suddenly shut up shop in 1968.
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A talented sculptor, modeller and multi-skilled craft-worker, Loma Lautour’s life was as colourful and intriguing as her name suggests. Described in the press at the time of her marriage to Ray Lindsay as ‘a well- known, tall and dusky maiden’, in later articles she was variously described as ‘flamboyant’, ‘eccentric’ and ‘dressed like a man’.
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When British inventor and engineer William Wilson developed an innovative spring system and reversible hood to go on the perambulator, he could never have guessed that more than 135 years later the same design would be wheeling out with the future King of England enjoying the smooth ride.
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In 1895, Estelle Arpels – the daughter of a precious stone merchant and the sister of two expert gemmologists – married Alfred Van Cleef, the son of a diamond broker, and the stage was set for the rise of one of the world’s most successful haute jewellers.
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Science fiction had been gaining momentum from the early 1930s with the rise of pop culture icons such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, but it was the release of films such as Destination Moon in 1950 and The Day the Earth Stood Still in 1952 that really put it first and foremost in the public eye. When the Sputnik was launched in 1957 the world really went mad for sci-fi, and savvy toy producers cashed in on the interest.
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When people think of Wedgwood, more often than not they think of the blue and white porcelain, but this is, in fact, just the tip of the iceberg: almost every type of ceramic body has been produced at the Wedgwood factory since 1759, along with an inexhaustible range of decoration.
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Glass has held a fascination for humans for millennia with our magpie-like love of shiny objects. Recently another element has been introduced: nostalgia. While classical forms remain timeless to collectors, glass of the not-too-distant-past is appealing to people of all ages, particularly the young, who have a renewed interest in all things retro.
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You may never have heard of her, and there’s a good reason: Suzanne Belperron pioneered the technique of setting precious stones in semiprecious materials, and was convinced that the originality of her jewellery made it so easily identifiable that there was no need for a signature.
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Morris Furniture fitted out many of London’s prestigious hotels including The Mayfair, Grosvenor House, Strand Palace and Regent Palace… it was a thriving mid-century operation.
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She might be one of the most successful costume jewellery designers of her era, but surprisingly little is known about French artist Lea Stein.
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George Nelson is credited as being instrumental in bringing European modernism to the United States of America, but Australia’s connections to the European modern movement also emerged in the pre- and post-WWII period.
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Innovative, functional and quickly seen as a ‘must have’ kitchen appliance, the bench mixer – generically referred to by many as a ‘Mixmaster’ (the Sunbeam Corporation’s brand name) – has long been a domestic icon. It’s possibly the most popular and sought after appliance of its generation.
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Our Mid Century Modern section puts the spotlight on some collecting trends including the psychedelic charm of Carlton Ware, Harry Winston jewels, Novo Rumo from Brazil, Higginsware, McLaren Pottery and the Tretchikoff legend as well as bite-sized snippets from the Mid Century market.
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Our Mid Century Modern section puts the spotlight on some collecting trends including the famous Eero Aarnio Ball chair, lighting by Sciolari, the vintage record player, Diana Pottery and the Bojeson monkey as well as bite-sized snippets from the Mid Century market.
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Our Mid Century Modern section puts the spotlight on some collecting trends including jeweller Wendy Ramshaw, lighting designer Emil Stejnar, Midwinter pottery, Snelling furniture and Tupperware, as well as bite-sized snippets from the Mid Century market. Fibre optic lamps, anyone?
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Our new Mid Century Modern section puts the spotlight on some collecting trends including Pyrex, Georg Jensen jewellery, retro TV sets and Arabia pottery, as well as bite-sized snippets from the Mid Century market.
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Readers of a certain vintage will remember The Two Ronnies, and the chair in which Ronnie Corbett sat as he told his long, long, long and rambling stories. Well, it wasn’t just any old chair; it was the work of mid-century British firm Merrow Associates.
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In late 2020, Waistel Cooper’s auction record was broken twice in the space of eight days. And yet it seems hardly anyone has heard of him. Is his work the best kept secret in the world of rising ceramics stars?
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When more than 60 pieces of glass made by Samuel Herman were shown in a dedicated exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1971, he became the first contemporary glass artist and the first living glass artist to be given an exhibition at the museum…
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Many designers are fashionable and some reach the peak of their profession, but only a handful are so innovative that their work both defines a period and shapes that which follows.
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In May 2013, The New York Times published a piece on Blenko Glass to coincide with an exhibition called Big Color that took place during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. Since the glass was neither contemporary nor furniture, what was it doing there?
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Judith Dunn looks at the novel use some fashion designers made of cutting-edge industrial plastics to create glitz and glam with gloriously impractical handbags.
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As Scandinavian glass takes the retro world by storm, there’s one major glass producer that has been largely overlooked. Welcome to the world of Riihmaki.
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Some of the most sought after pieces of glass were ridiculed in their day. But time passes and tastes change, and today’s collectors see something entirely different in the daring and sometimes eccentric designs of the mid-20th century.
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Bitossi ceramics are incredibly popular and distinctively unique thanks to their bright colours and unusual textures. But how did a small Italian ceramics company become a major producer of mid-century collectables?
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Ivor Hughes looks at the rise in popularity and accessibility of Swedish art glass, both domestically and worldwide in the 1950s.
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Sam Maloof was an American furniture designer who believed so strongly in his principles that he turned down multi-million dollar offers to mass-produce his designs and instead worked by hand from his home workshop.
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With more developments, discoveries and achievements than perhaps we realise, there is no doubt that the 20th century brought about major shifts in society and transformed the way most people lived. Mass communication, faster transportation, information technology and travel into outer space all transpired during this time, setting the world on a path of constant change.
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