Storage jar
Susan Williams-Ellis (1918 - 2007)
Category
Ceramics
Date
1959 - 1968
Materials
bone china
Measurements
250 mm (Height); 140 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Stoke-on-Trent
Order this imageCollection
Chartwell, Kent
NT 1101347
Caption
Susan Williams-Ellis founded the Portmeirion Pottery. She created cutting-edge designs for table, tea and coffee wares that continue to sell across the world. Williams-Ellis was born into a creative family and was determined to become an artist from an early age. As a child, she attended Dartington Hall School in Devon, where she was taught woodturning – a skill that she would later put to use making plaster moulds for her commercial ceramics – and wheel-throwing by potters Bernard and David Leach, which developed her understanding of clay. She went on to study at Chelsea Polytechnic’s art school, before returning to Dartington to teach art, later working as an illustrator and independent textile and surface-pattern designer. A set of tiles she designed for Poole Pottery was shown in the 1946 Britain Can Make It exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 1953 Williams-Ellis and her husband, Euan Cooper-Willis (1920–2015), took over the running of the gift shop at Portmeirion, the model village in Gwynedd designed by her father, the architect Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978). Sensing an opportunity to improve sales, Susan began to create bespoke ceramic patterns for the shop, which were printed onto blanks (undecorated pots) by the Staffordshire decorating firm A.E. Gray & Co. One of the first designs to be created exclusively for Portmeirion was Dolphin. The colours used were unusual at the time and were intended to harmonise with modern kitchen interiors. Williams-Ellis took over Gray & Co. in 1960 and, a year later, the pottery manufacturer Kirkham’s Limited. The two businesses were amalgamated and became Portmeirion Pottery Ltd. This gave Williams-Ellis complete creative freedom – she was no longer restricted to developing surface patterns, but could design brand-new shapes. Some of her most successful and iconic designs were the 1960s ‘cylinder’ forms – particularly her tall, elegant coffee pots – that are so closely associated with the Portmeirion style. Her outstanding contribution to the industry was recognised in 2002 with an honorary degree from Keele University.
Summary
Set of four storage jars and covers, bone china, cylindrical jar with slightly spreading foot, convex domed cover and circular knop, ridge below rim, designed by Susan Williams-Ellis in 1959, made at Gray's Pottery, Stoke-on-Trent, England, ca 1959-68; printed in black with two stylised dolphins either side of a bracket with shells.
Marks and inscriptions
'GRAYS POTTERY, made in Stoke-on-Trent, England' with ship emblem
Makers and roles
Susan Williams-Ellis (1918 - 2007), designer Portmeirion , manufacturer
References
Conroy, Rachel, Women Artists and Designers at the National Trust, 2025, pp. 238-9