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Elischer

Elischer C1

Designer	Cotton/John Eischer
Maker	Elischer
Marks	Incised to base “Elischer C1”
Description	Square bowl with rounded corners, tapering towards base. Spoon shaped handle typical of Cotton (U.K). Black exterior gloss glaze with harlequin interiors. With two serving trays of similar colour and glaze. interiors.
Number	Set of four.
Production Date	Possibly early 1960s
Width	103mm 4.1/2”
Depth	47mm 1.3/4”
Length (with handle)	145mm 5.1/2”
Weight	290gm
Volume	310ml
Acquisition	Salvo shop Mount Waverley

Elischer Pottery was started in Sandringham in 1947 by well-known sculptor John (Johann Wolfgang) Elischer (1891-1966) and his son, also named John, (real name Wolly). John (Snr) was born in Vienna and trained at the Academy of Vienna from 1908 to 1911 and was an Associate of the Royal Academy Vienna. It was reported that he won the Prix de Rome in 1909. This was a scholarship for art students, offered by a number of countries. Although his name does not appear on any of the list of winners, he may have been awarded a second prize. This is no shame because Manet and Monet both failed to win the Prix de Rome. Although, their records show that there is no prizewinner listed under the painting category for 1909. Johan later studied in Paris (1910-1911) under the even more famous August Rodin.

After serving with the Austro-Hungarian forces in World War 1, he practiced as a sculptor in Vienna and designed figures for Austrian porcelain factories. In 1924, he became the Art Director at Dittman-Brunner, an Austrian light fitting and novelty manufacturer. He won an international competition in 1926 to design a memorial in South Africa for General Botha. An excellent example of his early work, the sculpture, 'Foundryman' is held in the Eckhart G. Grohmann Museum at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. This piece captures the intense concentration and skill involved in pouring metal.

John migrated to Australia in mid November 1936 with his sister Edith. While living in Douglas Street Toorak in 1951, John won the 200 guinea prize ($420, about two months wages of the day) for a design for a jubilee medal for Australian Primary School and pre school children. There is a medal on the table with these ramekins. The medal was given to the school children of Australia in 1951 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Federation of Australia. The design was chosen after a competition, with the valuable cash prize of two hundred guineas. It was won by John for his depiction of a man hand-sowing wheat. The wheat represents the seven States of Australia on the other side of the medal, at left 1901, at right 1951 in tiny letters near ground right, J.W.E. (obverse) Some of his notable sculptures are busts of Archbishop Daniel Mannix and Television great Graham Kennedy in clay. students.

At a meeting of the University Conservatorium Old Students, in November 1937, He said; "The origin of creative art is longing. Nature has given us all the incentive to mould, form, or create in one way or another. A child at play is only employing the creative urge it feels within itself, and an artist is nothing but a big child”. Elischer, P. Hurry and John Farmer together held an exhibition of works at the Atheaeum, Collins Street Melbourne, in June 1937. The catalogue lists 10 pieces of sculpture by 'John Wolfgang Elischer, A.R.A. (Associate of the Royal Academy) (Vienna)' (Copy in Museum Victoria History and Technology Department

In early October 1938, John’s two sons Frederick and Wolly arrived in Melbourne aboard the “Tiederic”. Wolly, who spoke no English, was apprenticed to his father and studied sculpture, since, as a child he was fond of modelling. Wolly joined the Scouts, an organization he belonged to in Austria before it was banned by the Nazis. Both boys were keen athletes. Also in 1938, his mother Anna died. She had been one of Franz Lizst's last students and was a renowned concert pianist.

Elischer also received commissions for sculptures including the King George V Memorial in Bendigo (1938). The statue was unveiled in September 1939 by the then Premier of Victoria, Mr Dunstan amidst complaints that local materials had not been used in the making of the statue.He also made a bronze fountain for businessman and philanthropist Sir Russell Grimwade in Toorak. After seven years in Australia, John applied to become a naturalized Australian in 1943. Austria, Australia, only a couple of letters different. In 1946 Huntley Pottery in Glenhuntly began making slip cast items designed by John Elischer. In the late 1940s/1950s, Elischer branched out from his line of homewares and began making flagons and related advertising items such as ash-trays and jugs for the liquor industry.  Many of these commercial items are now prized by collectors but today, you can still find his port bottles in most op-shops.

John (Senior) died in 1966 and the business was continued by his son John (Wolly), until 1987 when it was sold. Prior to that, at some time, he started making pieces the brand NCP. The business continues today as “Unique Ceramics” at 31 - 33 Beaumaris Parade, Highett, Victoria.You probably have some of their stuff without knowing it. Have a look at the bottom of that ceramic port bottle of beer stein from the Dandenong Octoberfest. In 2002, Elischer Street in Canberra was named in his honour. Unique Ceramics continues to use the “Elischer” brand today on some of their wares.

Diana (U63)

Designer	Diana
Maker	Diana
Marks	U 63 impressed into slipware under glaze No chips, cracks or crazing.
Description	Curved sided slipware bowl with folded strap handle. Light monochrome glaze with unglazed foot ring.
Number	U 63
Production Date	1960s
Width	105mm
Depth	45mm
Length (with handle)	163mm
Weight	215gm
Volume	250ml
Acquisition	Savers, Dandenong, Victoria.

Eric Cornwell Lowe was born in Melbourne in 1901 at East Brunswick, Victoria.  At the time, a number of potteries operated in the area, but Eric’s father (Arthur Horace Lindsay Lowe, 1868-1938) was a Salesman and later an Agent.  His mother was Amy Beatrice Catterall (b1871).  Eric moved to Sydney and married Vera Louisa Christopher in 1932, they do not appear to have had children.   Arthur and Amy moved up in the world, moving from Brunswick to Moonee Ponds, then to Caulfield, an affluent Melbourne suburb.

Young Eric was quite entrepreneurial in his late teens as he began importing cut glass and crockery from Germany and Czechoslovakia.  Timing was not on his side as this began in 1939.  This company was called “Eric C Lowe Pty Ltd.”   “Manufacturers of Utility and Fancy Earthenware”.

The shareholders of this company were;

·        Eric C Lowe

·        Mrs Vera Louise Lowe

·        John Christopher

·        Winston McKenley Christopher

·        Brian Winter LeQueene

·        Josephine Mary Permewan (Victoria)

·        Ralph Rankin  (Victoria)

Directors of the company were

·        E.C.Lowe

·        V.L.Lowe

·        J.Christopher

·        W.M.Christopher

·         

The business was incorporated in New South Wales on the 11^th of July 1939, having previously been carried on by Eric as a sole trader, and was given 401 ordinary and 2665 preference shares when incorporated. 

Eric had a large amount of stock on hand and could not sell it due to the stigma now attached to German goods.  So, during the Second World War (1941) Eric and Vera got Government contracts to produce ceramic wares (cream ware cups and mugs and pots and jugs) for the armed forces. Eric did not join up as many of his contemporaries did.  Many industries supplying the armed forces were “protected industries” and many of their employees were exempt from military service.  Most potteries at that time were geared for the war effort and the demand from Australian and American troops was enormous. 

Seen after the company incorporated, in 1941, Eric began making art pottery.  This did not last long as wartime restrictions meant that this was prohibited in May 1942.  They began making teapots, jugs, cups and mugs around May 1942.  During wartime, price control measures meant that Eric had to submit financial returns to the Commonwealth government.  This fixed the price that Eric could charge for the output. Thankfully, these records still exist.  These give detailed accounts of all the itemised accounting for the business. 

These are notable for showing that Fowler, Bakewell and Mashman were making similar items for the services.  Still, this did not stop the business from making a profit of 39.3% in 1940/41 and 26.0% in 1941/42.  Profits gradually dropped and the next year they only made about 13%.  In 1943/44, the profit was down to 10.7%.  The next year produced a deficit of £411.  Late in 1944, Eric had to repay 25 of his workers back pay because of a Womens Employment Board decision that he had underpaid them.  These were all women as most men had by then enlisted. 

Although born in Victoria, his pottery was started at 122-126 Marrickville Road, Marrickville, Sydney and it continued there until the early 1970s, when cheap copies and imports caused a drastic decline in sales and its eventual closure.  The giant Fowler works were already established there works in the area because of the clay found in the area, and later, Studio Anna commenced nearby.  They also purchased kaolin from the Pottery Clay Works for £3.15/- per ton.

In November 1945, a fire started by a lime kiln spread to the works and quickly destroyed much of the factory. Fire is an occupational hazard in potteries and brick works but nevertheless it was a devastating blow.  The works had been extensively refurbished the previous year.  Contracts from the Services were drying up and production had to revert to peace time items.  When the war finished, Arthur began had rebuilt and began making domestic pottery for the homes of the families of returned services people.  This included a large range of slip cast vases in a variety of gloss and matte colours, sizes and shapes, or sprayed to create a speckled texture,

Their output included such products as ceramic horse-head book ends, several other animal figures, (a pair of greyhounds was a popular product) tableware, utility and kitchenware. Over 200 different shapes were produced during their lifetime.  Some products were sold using the name “Hollywood.”  By the early 1950s the company had more than 70 employees and were producing a large range of hand painted articles which included "Waltzing Matilda" musical mugs and jugs, and produced bright "gumnut" pots with pale green and brown glazes.

The musical mugs and jugs played when lifted, but the movements were expensive and difficult to obtain, being imported from Switzerland, so many mugs and jugs that should have had movements were sold without at reduced prices. In the 1960s Diana diversified their range further into decorated oven and kitchenware, hand painted with maple, poinsettia, cornflower, blackberry, wattle and flannel flower designs.  In the 1960's, a variety of small slip cast vases hand decorated in gold were made for a gift shop in the Imperial Arcade Sydney which were marketed under the name 'Imperial'.  Although these are not ramekins, I have some of them.

After the Second World War there had been a massive increase in the number of potteries around Australia. Commercial, studio and backyard potteries were being established in the suburbs of most major cities and by 1955 there were over 12,000 people working in the quarrying and manufacture of clay related industries.  This also included brickworks.  After the war, Eric had changed production to domestic pottery and throughout the 1950s, Diana was the largest and most prolific pottery in New South Wales, producing hundreds of different products and designs, many hand painted. Native wildflowers were a popular motif.

Among them, as mentioned, the Flannel Flower, an iconic Sydney plant used in imagery and art since colonial times.  Sometimes known as the Sydney Flannel Flower, it is usually known as the Flannel Flower and was chosen to be the New South Wales floral emblem for the Centenary of Federation (1901-2001).  It is found in the sandstone national parks in the greater Sydney area and can be sometimes found in spectacular drifts.  The flowers are about 50mm in diameter and appear in Spring.  The stunning Pink Flannel Flower is rarely seen as it only appears in the summer following a bushfire.

Soon after the end of the Second World War, Eric began advertising for more staff and soon had a thriving business making home-wares for the thousands of ex-servicemen starting their families.  His pottery even had a staff canteen, far more advanced than many of the other one or two person companies operating on a shoestring budget.  In the mid 1960s, they (Diana Pottery (Vic) Pty Ltd) had a shop in Melbourne at 343 Little Collins Street. 

The potteries around Australia employed thousands of people, many given their start in Australia following migration from Europe after the second word war.  Eric Jungvirt who started Studio Anna was one who started with Eric at Diana.  I think it fair to say that you would have had a piece of Diana pottery in yours or your parents home at some stage, probably a ramekin, a mixing bowl or a vase. At their peak, Diana employed around 70 people but this had declined to around 30 by 1970.  They continued on for a few more years calling their output “Dana”. 

In Australia, the Whitlam Government had cut tariffs without warning by 25 percent in 1973.  1974 saw an increase in imports of 30 percent.  By mid-1974, Australia was in an economic slump with unemployment rising significantly.  Short-term credit rates rose to extremely high levels and this caused prices to spike sharply, and according to Government figures, inflation topped 13 percent for over a year between 1973 and 1974.  On top of these problems, wage parity was legislated for female workers meant an increase in wages costs.It was in this climate that Diana fell on hard times and ceased production.  Eric was by then in his early 50s.

Much of the Dana ceramics were copies of the later “Nefertiti” ramekins, with a rough textured (Avocado) exterior and a brown glazed lip and interior. They also produced wares using the names Hollywood, Imperial and just plain Australian.  Check out the Diana website for lots more.   Also, a potter at Bendigo Pottery told me that the conveyor that moves the pottery around the Bendigo Pottery today was said to have come from the old Diana Pottery after it closed in 1974.  The entire Marrickville site consisting of the Fowler, Diana and Studio Anna potteries was demolished and subdivided in 1982.  Eric died in Sydney NSW on the 10^th February 1977 age 76.  Vera lived on for many years.

Wembley Ware

Designer	Wembley
Maker	Wembley
Marks	Faint circle with “Wembley Ware” impressed. Flat base with rhomboid shaped body. Curved sides, angled outwards from base. Curved overhead handle. Part of set of four. Described as a ramekin but more accurately a small serving dish.
Description
Number
Production Date	Approximately 1960
Width	175mm
Depth	30mm
Length (with handle)	130mm
Weight	290gm
Volume	230ml
Acquisition	E-Bay

Like some of the Sylha suff, these are not really ramekins, but most advertisers on internet auctiob sites think they are.  They were originally Hors d'ouvres sets and were set into a shallow wicker tray.  They are Wembley and are definitely worth getting.

If you look up Ford, you will see myriad marks for the various incarnations of the entities that once were Wembley Ware and allied companies. For the purposes of this entry, I will only refer to the one mark impressed into these ramekins. It is a circle with the words “Wembley Ware” inside. Wembley began in 1938 when the Wunderlich Company merged with H L Brisbane & Co who had taken over Westralian Potteries Ltd in Subiaco in 1927.

The area now known as Ascot Island had been a clay quarry for Perth since the early 20^th Century. Wunderlich was a family business started by Ernest, Julius and Frederick Wunderlich. The firm grew into a highly successful company with branches in all Australian States and in Wellington, New Zealand. Wunderlich Ltd was the first Australian firm to introduce a 44 hour week without a pay reduction (1908) and in 1914 started a profit-sharing scheme for employees. Between 1940 and 1944, Asbestos Mines Pty Ltd was owned by Wunderlich Ltd.

Homewares were first developed pre Wembley around 1927 when Flora Landells established her Studio Pottery, learning from Frederick Piercy, owner of the Westralian Pottery Company. During World War II they catered for shortages of domestic ware. Her husband Reg died in 1960 and her pottery was closed, and Wembley only survived another 12 months.

In 1946 Brisbane and Wunderlich created a range of decorative homewares called Wembley Ware. The range was H.L. Brisbane’s idea. Their first product was the cruet set. To avoid paying a high sales tax the piece was fashioned into a salt and pepper shaker and a mustard dish. Post war tax on utilitarian pottery was lower than decorative ware. These sets proved to be very popular, and many more pieces of tableware and other wares made.

Brisbane and Wunderlich were then based in Subiaco and were the biggest commercial ceramics company in Australia at the time, even exporting to New Zealand. The company, also owned Bristle Tiles. Over the next three decades Lance Brisbane built the company into a large and diversified manufacturing enterprise, moving into stainless-steel products, clay sewer-pipes, porcelain, high temperature refractory bricks, aluminium fabrication, building cladding and plastics. In the 1990s Brisbane and Wunderlich sold out to Australian Fine China. This was long after its Wembley Ware range ended in 1961.

Karl Duldig

Designer	Karl Duldig
Maker	Karl Duldig
Marks	Incised KD with K inside D
Description	Hand thrown clay bowl with flat base.  Brown glaze brushed onto interior.  Exterior clear gloss glaze including base.  Natural clay colour to exterior.  Folded rod of clay pinched onto side of bowl.
Number
Production Date	1950s
Width	125mm
Depth	50mm
Length (with handle)	155mm
Weight	175gm
Volume	300ml
Acquisition	Salvo Store, Hastings, Victoria Australian Pottery at Bemboka

Karl Duldig was an Australian sculptor, ceramicist, painter, printmaker and teacher. The type of work he produced was early modernist, expressive and mostly figurative sculpture and bas-reliefs.   The materials he was working in were stone, wood, clay/terracotta, copper and bronze and others.  He also produced extensive work in graphic mediums: pen and ink, pencil, woodcuts, watercolour and oil and stained glass.  

Born in Przemysl, Poland, on the 29^th December 1902, to Marcus Duldig and his wife Adele (Nebenzahl) Karl moved to Vienna with his family in 1913.  In his youth he was an outstanding sportsman, won the Austrian table-tennis championship, played international soccer and was a highly ranked tennis player.

In 1921, he became a student at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna where he worked for three years under the noted Austrian sculptor Anton Hanak. His work was chosen to represent the institute in major national and international exhibitions. In 1922-24 he visited London, Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, Lemberg, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem. In 1931 he did a study tour in Italy and France. In 1926 he became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and from 1929 to 1933 he was a member of the Academy's prestigious Master School in Sculpture under Professor Josef Müllner. After his graduation he shared a studio with Dr Arthur Fleischmann, worked on private commissions and exhibited in the Künstlerhaus and the Secession.

Karls wife was the inventor of the small folding umbrella.  In 1928 Slawa Horowitz was a student studying sculpture at the Academy of Visual Arts, Vienna, when she decided to develop a more practical umbrella.  Slawa spent many months developing it in secret before she applied for and received a patent on 19 September 1929 for a folding umbrella.   Slawa was paid royalties till 1938. She and her husband, the sculptor Karl Duldig, left Vienna in the same year and fled to Switzerland. In 1939 she sold her rights to the company "Bruder Wuster".

After a short period in Switzerland the family arrived in Singapore in 1939. There, Duldig completed major commissions for the Sultan of Jahore and Aw Boon Haw, the Tiger Balm King. The eminent author and historian Robert Payne was his friend and among his patrons.  The Duldig family were then deported by the British to Australia in 1940 aboard the “Queen Mary”, arriving in Sydney on the 25^th September.  Shortly after their arrival, they were interned in Number 3 Camp, Tatura, Victoria as “detained refugees” after he was declared an “Enemy Alien”.  They were there for two years.

Even in the internment camp, Duldig practiced sculpture by carving eucalypt logs with an axe. After his release from Tatura internment camp in 1942, he worked for the army with the Eighth Employment Company. He produced carvings from large potatoes while working in the kitchen there, including Mother and child, one of three of these works that survived, having been cast into plaster made available to him by a sympathetic commander, Captain Edward (Tip) Broughton.

From 1943-45 he was employed in the war industry and then as a lithographer for Victory Publicity. From 1944-60 he conducted a studio pottery business.  Karl became a naturalized Australian citizen in 1946.

From late in the war onwards, “hundreds of coffee sets, ramekins, ashtrays and decorative ware being turned, finished, decorated and glazed” in the Duldigs’ kitchenette. Every spare minute went into filling orders. Karl had a kick-wheel built to his own design. They bought an electric kiln on time payment, setting it up in the garage of the flat. They sold their first stock through a local florist and later at specialist outlets, the most significant being the Primrose Pottery Shop in the heart of the city.

The demand for anything and everything was strong because of wartime shortages and later because imports of crockery and china were limited by the need to reduce the trade deficit. The pent-up demand for tableware was so great that shoppers smashed windows in January 1947 when a Sydney store advertised a shipment of plain utility services.  The domestic pottery trade earned the Duldigs sufficient income to buy a two-door Morris 8 in 1948.

The suburban sprawl that stimulated the demand for bricks and tiles as well as table-ware also locked up the land from which clay could be extracted. Duldig’s search for materials was wide-ranging. Helen Bond reports that he dug his own clay at Wye River, to the west of Port Phillip Bay, where his family holidayed from 1945 to 1952. This source “produced dark brown earthenware, ideal for contrasting with light and dark blue glazes or under-glaze colours, and suitable for hand built vessels such as vases, or an unusual coffee set”. To keep up with demand, the Duldigs also bought prepared clays. A white variety went into their “Rose Ware” line.

The bulk of their supplies came from Camperfield Quarry, which was “distinguished by its plasticity, and was invaluable for producing finely turned dishes and generally suitable for all types of functional ware”. In the 1960s, for his terracotta sculptures, he turned to a more pink clay, dug from local drainage works.   This search for suitable clays brought him closer to his new land, as he dug beneath its surface. Karl and Slawa also experimented with colours and glazes, all in short supply until the 1950s.

Four patterns predominated on their ceramics. Slawa developed the rose decoration, which, like the flower itself, owed debts to China and England. Attached to Britain as their “Mother Country”, Australians looked on the rose as their own emblem, whether in their gardens or on their crockery. After the shops rejected Duldig plates with crazing in their glaze, Swala sponged colour onto those surfaces, replicating a Chinese technique they had seen in Singapore. Her adaptations of middle-European folk patterns offered the brightness for which buyers craved after years of military drab, yet she avoided the rawness of the Mexicana resorted to even by art potters. 

Karl’s employment of native flora was less innovative since the great potteries – Doulton and Rosenthal – had long known that local wildflowers sold well here.  His treatment of Aboriginal designs was distinguished by his pursuit of originals in the Melbourne Museum, and his sgraffito retained their detailing within an eccentric symmetry, recalling classical Greek pots. In lesser hands, abstracted Aboriginal motifs were appearing as the crudest simplifications on every commodity, from tea towels to Venetian blinds, and never more so than for the tourist trade during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

Karl Duldig's professional achievements in Australia spanned many facets of the arts. He was Director of Art at Mentone Boys Grammar School from 1945 to1967;  founding and Honorary Life President of the Bezalel Fellowship of the Arts; President of the Association of Sculptors of Victoria and Honorary Life Member from 1982.  In 1956 he won the Victorian Sculptor of the Year Award.

Duldig participated regularly in important group exhibitions, including the Mildura Sculpture Triennial, New Influences Newcastle, Olympic Games exhibition Melbourne 1956; 1960 Adelaide Festival; 1961 New Influences, Newcastle; 1961, 1964 and 1967 Mildura Sculpture Prize; 1973 Realities Sculpture Survey Como; 1978,80 and 82 McClelland Gallery; 1979, 1985 Jewish Museum of Australia; 1962 founding president, Ben Uri Society of Arts (later Bezalel Fellowship of Arts); 1968 visited Israel and travelled in Europe, U.S.A. and Mexico; From 1946 member of and regular exhibitor with Association of Sculptors of Victoria; 1977 ASV president; 1982-83 Survey exhibition at McClelland Gallery, Langwarrin, and publication of second monograph Karl Duldig Survey-Sculpture and Graphic Works 1922-1982;  Awarded Honorary Life Membership of the Association of Sculptors of Victoria.  In 1983 he Married Rosie Dorin; 1985 Commission Raoul Wallenberg Monument Kew Junction Melbourne; 1986 Exhibition of drawings: Karl Duldig at Mentone Grammar School 1945-67.

On the 11th Aug 1986 Karl passed away in Melbourne at the age of 83.  From 1986 National Gallery of Victoria presents Annual Lecture on Sculpture in his name.   From 1946 he was also a regular exhibitor with the Association of Sculptors of Victoria and solo shows in Australia included:

- the Outdoor exhibition with Tolarno Galleries in 1969, 

- the Retrospective at the Hawthorn City Gallery in 1975, and

- the Survey exhibition at the McClelland Gallery in 1982-83.

Duldig is represented by significant works held overseas as well as in Australia.  In the Melbourne metropolitan area examples of his work in public places are best seen at the City of Caulfield Municipal Offices;  Melbourne General Cemetery War Memorial;  Council House Little Collins Street;  Kadimah Cultural Centre  Elsternwick;   Kew Junction (Raoul Wallenberg Monument);  St Mary's Church  Altona.  In addition to The Duldig Studio, his work is held by major galleries in Australia including the Australian National Gallery, the Australian War Memorial and the National Gallery of Victoria and by private collectors in many parts of the world. 

The Duldig Studio is now a museum and comprises the residence, sculpture garden and artists' studio of the internationally renowned sculptor Karl Duldig (1902-1986) and his artist-inventor wife, Slawa Duldig (c1902-1975).  The house museum in Malvern East holds an extensive collection of sculptures in terracotta, marble and bronze, paintings, drawings and decorative arts presented in the artists' original home setting.

This has been compiled using a biography that is © 2006 The Duldig Studio.
 

Mystery Maker Marked SP

Designer	Cotton (UK)
Maker	Unknown, possibly test pieces from Lane.
Marks	“SP” roughly painted to base
Description	Shoddy slipware copy of Lane or Elischer (Cotton) design, with dark green poorly applied overglaze and unglazed base. Interior of bowl has an off –white matte glaze and has discoloured in some due to absorbtion of contents at some stage
Number
Production Date	Early 1970s ?
Width	92mm
Depth	43mm
Length (with handle)	130mm
Weight	210gm
Volume	250mm
Acquisition	Sylvies Second Hand Shop, Huntingdale

These ramekins are of roughly made slipware using a design common to Lane in the 1960s. They are a poor copy and different dimensions to the original. The slip is less porous than the original on the outside but still chips just as easily. Were these pieces made by a learner? Any ideas? John (Wally) Elischer sold out in 1987. Prior to that, he had made pieces using the brand NCP. I doubt that these pieces are later than 1987. Style is that of Lane and are probably sample pieces, hence the "SP".

Elischer (Cottonware Copy)

Designer	John Elischer
Maker	Elischer
Marks	Impressed signature “Elischer” to base
Description	Teardrop shaped slipware bowl with white semi gloss glaze to exterior and harlequin colours to interior
Number
Production Date
Width	98mm
Depth	40mm
Length (with handle)	143mm
Weight	185gm
Volume	200ml
Acquisition

Elischer Pottery was started in Sandringham in 1947 by well-known sculptor John (Johann Wolfgang) Elischer (1891-1966) and his son, also named John, (real name Wolly). John (Snr) was born in Vienna and trained at the Academy of Vienna from 1908 to 1911 and was an Associate of the Royal Academy Vienna. It was reported that he won the Prix de Rome in 1909. This was a scholarship for art students, offered by a number of countries. Although his name does not appear on any of the list of winners, he may have been awarded a second prize. This is no shame because Manet and Monet both failed to win the Prix de Rome. There is no prizewinner listed under the painting category for 1909. Johan later studied in Paris (1910-1911) under the even more famous August Rodin.

After serving with the Austro-Hungarian forces in World War 1, he practiced as a sculptor in Vienna and designed figures for Austrian porcelain factories. In 1924, he became the Art Director at Dittman-Brunner, an Austrian light fitting and novelty manufacturer. He won an international competition in 1926 to design a memorial in South Africa for General Botha. An excellent example of his early work, the sculpture, 'Foundryman' is held in the Eckhart G. Grohmann Museum at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. This piece captures the intense concentration and skill involved in pouring metal.

John migrated to Australia in mid November 1936 with his sister Edith. While living in Douglas Street Toorak in 1951, John won the 200 guinea prize for a design for a jubilee medal for Australian Primary School and pre school children. The medal was given to the school children of Australia in 1951 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Federation of Australia. The design was chosen after a competition, with the valuable cash prize of two hundred guineas. It was won by John for his depiction of a man hand-sowing wheat. The wheat represents the seven States of Australia on the other side of the medal, at left 1901, at right 1951 in tiny letters near ground right, J.W.E. (obverse) Some of his notable sculptures are busts of Archbishop Daniel Mannix and Television great Graham Kennedy in clay. students.

At a meeting of the University Conservatorium Old Students, in November 1937, He said; "The origin of creative art is longing. Nature has given us all the incentive to mould, form, or create in one way or another. A child at play is only employing the creative urge it feels within itself, and an artist is nothing but a big child”. Elischer, P. Hurry and John Farmer together held an exhibition of works at the Atheaeum, Collins Street Melbourne, in June 1937. The catalogue lists 10 pieces of sculpture by 'John Wolfgang Elischer, A.R.A. (Associate of the Royal Academy) (Vienna)' (Copy in Museum Victoria History and Technology Department

In early October 1938, John’s two sons Frederick and Wolly arrived in Melbourne aboard the “Tiederic”. Wolly, who spoke no English, was apprenticed to his father and studied sculpture, since, as a child he was fond of modelling. Wolly joined the Scouts, an organization he belonged to in Austria before it was banned by the Nazis. Both boys were keen athletes. Also in 1938, his mother Anna died. She had been one of Franz Lizst's last students and was a renowned concert pianist.

Elischer also received commissions for sculptures including the King George V Memorial in Bendigo (1938). The statue was unveiled in September 1939 by the then Premier of Victoria, Mr Dunstan amidst complaints that local materials had not been used in the making of the statue. He also made a bronze fountain for businessman and philanthropist Sir Russell Grimwade in Toorak. After seven years in Australia, John applied to become a naturalized Australian in 1943. Austria, Australia, only a couple of letters different. In 1946 Huntley Pottery in Glenhuntly began making slip cast items designed by John Elischer.

John (Senior) died in 1966 and the business was continued by his son John (Wolly), until 1987 when it was sold. Prior to that, at some time, he started making pieces the brand NCP. The business continues today as “Unique Ceramics” at 31 - 33 Beaumaris Parade, Highett, Victoria. You probably have some of their stuff without knowing it. Have a look at the bottom of that ceramic port bottle of beer stein from the Dandenong Octoberfest. In 2002, Elischer Street in Canberra was named in his honour. Unique Ceramics continues to use the “Elischer” brand today on some of their wares.