This is one of the most famous designs to
come out of the Bauhaus*, the hugely
inf luential design school founded in
Germany 100 years ago.
After the horrors of the First World War,
the school hoped to build a new world
through the power of good art and design.
This ethos extended to the things of
everyday life, including teapots.
This geometric 1924 teapot was designed
by Marianne Brandt, a rare exception in
the Bauhaus as a woman allowed to study a
discipline other than weaving. She
carefully reconsidered every detail of a
teapot, from spout to handle.
Although the Bauhaus aimed to design
objects that could be mass-produced, at
that stage they didn’t really have the
necessary knowhow. In fact, what may look
like a vision of the future was lovingly
made by hand. And rather than gracing the
tables of middle-class homes, as was once
hoped, Brandt’s design is now a collector’s
item, with an appropriately hefty price tag
attached: in 2007, a version of the teapot
sold for almost £300,000.MACHINE-AGE STYLE
Clarice Cliff translated the glamour of Art
Deco into a form that appealed to – and,
perhaps more crucially, was affordable for- the modern British woman.
Cliff herself was a remarkable example
of what a modern British woman could do.
Born one of seven children in a working-
class family in Tunstall, Staffordshire in
1899, she worked her way up through the
ceramics factories. By the time this teapot
was produced in 1931, she was overseeing
1,000 workers and promoted in the press as
a “brilliant young girl artist”.
In her teapots – and also plates, jugs,
cups, shakers – Cliff became famous for
taking the shapes of Art Deco style and
adding colour and some much appreciated
warmth. While ‘true’ Deco focused on
streamlined architecture and machines - cars, cinemas, ocean liners – Cliff’s
designs remained rooted in the domestic,
from crocuses to the kind of fairytale home
depicted here. And it clearly struck a chord
with consumers, riding out the Depression
while other factories f loundered.
Overall 8.5 million pieces of Cliff’s
designs were sold and remain sought-
after today, selling for hundreds, if
not thousands of pounds.
TA BLETOP A RT DECO
* Our very own contributing editor, Frances Ambler, has
written a book, The Story of the Bauhaus (Ilex), about the
school’s key designs and personalities.96