Designer
|
Reg Hawkins
|
Maker
|
Allan James /
Keryl (at Oakover Road)
|
Marks
|
Incised “A1”
to base
|
Material
|
Wheel thrown clay
|
Description
|
Clear glazed bowl with spoon handle attached to
outside top of rim. Cream glaze to
exterior and handle, speckled harlequin glaze to interior. Flat circular foot ring.
|
Condition
|
Very good
|
Number
|
Incised “A1”
to base
|
Production
Date
|
Early 1950s
|
Width at rim
|
85.5mm
|
Width at Base
|
65.9mm
|
Depth
|
40mm
|
Length (with
handle)
|
11.45mm
|
Weight
|
140gm
|
Volume
|
125ml
|
Acquisition
|
Purchase
Tyabb
Antiques
2nd
March 2014
|
Rameking
Reference Number
|
REM A1
001-004
|
These small ramekins were made by Allan James. That is about the only certainty. The location of their manufacture is open to conjecture. None of these A1 and A2 ramekins were marked as Remued although their design is in their shape books.
Premier Pottery in Preston commenced in 1929 by friends
David Dee (1877-1934) and Reg Hawkins (1894-1971). Both men had had much
experience in pottery before beginning this small business, set up at 52
Oakover Road in Preston. Previously this site was used for curing bacon. This
was a perfect location for opening a pottery as on the corner of Oakover and
St. Georges road at that time, was a large clay pit, virtually next door to the
pottery.
Premier Pottery Preston was a small undertaking, unusual in
that it produced only art pottery, all of it hand-thrown. David Dee threw the
pots, Reg Hawkins painted them, and David's son Walter Dee (1904-1987) did the
glazing and firing. Walter
helped his father construct a coal-fired kiln out of second-hand bricks and
also worked at the pottery glazing and firing. Dee was the thrower (the potter
that made the actual items with the wheel) and Hawkins, an Englishman that had
once lived with the Dee family in Box Hill, was the decorator. Walter worked as
the glazier after learning glazing and kiln firing.
Earlier, in 1912 David Dee had set up an insulator works but was soon
working in various other potteries around Melbourne suggesting this business
did not take off. When he co-founded Premier Pottery he was still working part
time. Dee was very good at throwing and produced all the early pottery. His work was mostly for commercial purposes
and the few pieces on which he signed his own name were made for use of his own
family. Sadly Dee passed away in 1934,
five years after Premier Pottery opened and was not present to see the future
successes of the business.
Dee, along with his five brothers, was an
apprentice at Campbell's pottery in Launceston, Tasmania, where he leant to use
the potter's wheel. His father Thomas
was a friend and neighbour of John Campbell.
Hawkins grew up in Poole, England, and trained as a decorator of pottery
before emigrating to Australia. Dee and Hawkins, seeing an opening in the
market for decorative ware, established their own business at a time when a
number of major potteries were closing due to the Great Depression. Thomas and his other sons; David Henry,
George Henry, John and Thomas Jnr all worked in the pottery trade around
Melbourne. They all lived together at
49 Victoria Street East Brunswick, just up the road from the pottery.
Premier's earlier work reflects the influence of English potteries, due
to Hawkin's background and training, and utilized underglazes and coloured
glazes imported from Britain. However Premier's soon developed a style that was
distinct, and by the 1930s became a highly established and successful business.
Throughout this period Premier was characterized by experimentation in glaze techniques
and surface treatment, along with the incorporating of Australian motifs into
their designs.
The products of Premier
Pottery Preston were not mass-produced. Everything was hand-made. In such an environment, inevitably pieces
were produced that were not intended for the retail market but were family
gifts, experiments, or simply giving rein to the potter's creative spirit.
Although perhaps not strictly 'Remued' many such pieces are nowadays amongst
the most interesting and sought-after.
They are often incised with the potter's name or initials.
Quite a few are signed by the principal throwers at Premier, David Dee and
Allan James (1914-1979). Others were
involved too; industry potters, sometimes moonlighting from jobs at bigger
potteries; and studio potters, notably Margaret Kerr, (1898-1958) Una Deerbon
(1882-1972) and John Castle-Harris (1893-1967).
In 1934, they added a smaller kiln to the set-up,
which included throwing and drying rooms and a storeroom for goods ready for
distribution by F.R. Barlow and Sons in the city and the Primrose Pottery Shop
(which was upstairs, in a building behind Bunnings on Little Collins Street)
listing wares by various makers priced from 6d in 1932 and 1/6 in 1936. Edith
MacMillan commissioned works for sale in her shop - just some of the domestic
wares the pottery produced for her (See Primrose Pottery).
But the person who made the Remued pots
so distinctive was Margaret Kerr, who modelled the gumnuts, gum leaves, berries
and branches that were applied to the wheel-thrown forms. Catherine Webb,
great-granddaughter of David Dee, writes: "It is possible that it was her
idea to begin using Australian imagery. Unpaid, Kerr would go to the pottery to
work on her own pieces, modelling animals and so on, which the pottery would
then fire and glaze for her; some of Kerr's images were then incorporated into
the work of the pottery. There is no evidence of this being other than a
mutually beneficial relationship: no tension emerged over ownership of the
designs."
Kerr was the daughter of painter Alexander Kerr and
had learnt pottery from Merric Boyd (1888-1959); his influence at Premier
Pottery was enormous. Kerr also studied
sculpture at the Working Man's College (now RMIT) and taught clay modelling at
Brunswick Technical School. The
confidence and exuberance of her forms suggest a passionate personality
Pottery produced at Premier Pottery Preston is better known as the
Remued range. The main characteristic of these pieces is the drip glaze style.
Before Premier Pottery produced the Remued range they branded their pieces as
PPP or Pamela. The name ‘Remued’ comes from Reg Hawkins’ second wife. Nonie Deumer was her maiden name, which
spelt backwards is Remued. She became an investor in the company after David
Dee’s death.
Reg Hawkins had sole control of the company after Dee’s death and that
generated much ill-will between him and Dee’s widow. This ended up being quite
a difficult time for Premier Pottery as she then refused Hawkins access to
Dee’s glaze recipe book containing much of the company’s trademark styles.
Hawkins offered £100 to resolve the issue but was refused by Mrs. Dee.
Eventually Walter Dee’s own glazes worked their way into the Remued range and
the company continued to succeed.
The continuous success of Premier Pottery was also because, two years
before Dee’s death, a 17-18 year old Alan James was riding his bicycle down
Oakover road when Reg Hawkins offered him a job. Alan accepted and became an apprentice thrower working under
David Dee. Alan picked up the skill
easily and was faster and better than anyone else in the company. He enjoyed his work and would practice at
every opportunity. Alan’s skill and
speed resulted in Premier Pottery becoming the leading business in its field as
it was able to produce much more than the competition with little resources.
After Dee’s death, Alan was the only
thrower and was responsible for all pot shapes from then on. He was also
skilful with decorating pieces after having taken classes with Margaret
Kerr. As Alan James took over the
decorating the style changed slightly and became more intricate, for example
single veined gumleaves can be seen in earlier work but in James’ work the
leaves were multi-veined.
Margaret Kerr began working at the Premier Pottery from the early
thirties, having worked previously as a clay modelling instructor. She was responsible for a lot of the
Australian floral and fauna decoration on the Remued range and may have even
made the moulds of gumleaves, gumnuts and koalas that appeared often as
decoration on the various pieces. She
was a talented artist though she only exhibited her own work during her student
years in the mid 20s. Originally Kerr
would visit the pottery to work on her own pieces which the pottery would fire
and glaze for her, and in return she would contribute to the decoration of the
pieces being made. Margaret Kerr’s
decoration was another contributing factor to the ongoing success of Premier
Pottery up until World War II, when she retired.
Alan James was the only worker to remain at the pottery during World War
II. The only reason the pottery was able to remain operational was because the
government had contracted the pottery to produce acid stoneware jars and white
army crockery. Making any decorative pieces was forbidden at the time because
of wartime restrictions.
The potter responsible for most Remued production was Allan James who had
originally been taught throwing by David Dee.
In 1951-52 he set up a second small pottery operation using an electric
kiln, not at Oakover Road but in the backyard of his home at 16 Esther St,
Preston. It may be speculated that he
was preparing to abandon Premier Pottery, which probably would have meant the
end of Premier because the pottery revolved around him. Whatever transpired it is known that, about
that time, his position at Premier changed from being an employee in a firm
owned by Reg Hawkins to being a co-owner.
Alan continued to work by day at Premier and worked evenings at home as
well.
The 'backyard' product, not surprisingly, bore a close similarity in style to
contemporary Remued production from Oakover Road. A new numbering series was instigated, the 'A' Series, marketed
alongside the Later Series through the same agents. Like the Later Series the
'A' Series started at number 1 but was distinguished by the prefix letter
'A'. Initially 'A' Series shapes were nearly all new, not repeating
previous shapes. They included that favourite of 1950s potters, ramekins
(numbered A1 & A2) plus lamp bases, dishes and vases.
Despite Premier Pottery in
Preston producing large quantities of ceramic work, they maintained a studio,
or handmade approach to their product. The people involved had, with few
exceptions, trained in large commercial potteries but saw value in creating pottery
by using the potter's wheel without the use of plaster moulds except for
decoration. This is significant for the time, as the studio potters were
developing sound markets, but were essentially working on a very small scale.
There were also many large scale commercial potteries in existence but these
tended to make thrown pots or household items as a sideline to industrial or
builders' supplies. The Premier Pottery ran for nearly thirty years, filling
the space between the studio potters and the factories in a depressed and
competitive market.
In 1946 Premier Pottery was back to the level of production it was at
before the war but strong competition arose from cheap Japanese imported goods,
hindering the success of Premier Pottery. This trend continued, ultimately
forcing them to close their doors for good in 1956.
Premier Pottery Preston finally ceased production following,
in part difficulties over the lease of the premises. Factors such as management and rental disputes, changes in the
market place, and a decrease in sales, eventually led to their closure.
Despite having a studio atmosphere,
Premier Pottery Preston was not a relaxed workplace; the pressure was on.
Incising signatures and shape numbers was commonly done late in the day, by
anyone available, and mistakes happened. Such mistakes present a problem for
cataloguing. An unexpected or anomalous
number cannot necessarily be dismissed as a 'mistake', and while some shapes
are sufficiently plentiful and well-documented that a mistaken example can be
confidently recognized, is not always the case.
Allan
James then went on to establish Kerryl Pottery in the nearby Melbourne suburb of Reservoir, at 53 Banbury Rd, and
transferred production of 'A' Series items there. Reg Hawkins did not join him. The series was extended with new shapes and
new styles of glazing reflecting changing fashions. Slip-casting was introduced for some designs, replicating popular
pieces from other potteries including Beswick, Shorter & Son and
E.G.Greenway. Many familiar shapes from
the Later Series also made a re-appearance in the Kerryl range, particularly
after about number A88. The name may
be derived from Margot Kerr who worked at Remued from the early 1930s and was
responsible for introducing the now highly collectable gumleaf/gumnut design,
although it is believed that it was named for Kerry, the son of Allan and
Myrtle James.
Premier Pottery Preston is considered a high point in the history of
Australian decorative pottery and pieces are sought and displayed by leading
museums such as the National Gallery of Victoria.
There was an exhibition of Remued and Preston Premier pottery held at
Bundoora Homestead in 2005.
Compiled from
Darebin Libraries
Powerhouse Museum
Remued.com
Penny Webb “Gumnuts and Glazes”
.JPG)
.JPG)
