This weekend, I flew to New York — for lunch! I was lucky enough to be flying out to the Big Apple to meet my old business colleague and good friend Julian Ellison, founder and CEO of LiveAuctioneers. Julian founded the company after leaving our alma mater icollector, which we both ended up effectively running […]
It may have been the 13th Cambridge Glass Fair, but the only people who were unlucky were those who didn’t visit! But there can’t have been many of them, as this fair was amongst the very busiest I have attended – and I’ve been going since the first. The queue began to build an hour […]
Even though the Fat Lava exhibition catalogue has sold out, I’m delighted to announce that the official Fat Lava documentary DVD is now available. With sweeping views of the original and first exhibition, fascinating interviews with the owner of the collection, Dr Graham Cooley, dealers including Petra and Patrick Folkersma of Outernational, and I, this […]
Browsing around my favourite junk shop in Notting Hill at the weekend, I chanced upon these rather sweet 1950s style salt and pepper shakers. With a speckly grey background and a handpainted design of stylised, angular fish I thought they were typical of the 1950s. Turning them over, I saw the bases were nicely inscribed […]
It’s taken a while for Fat Lava to start to move out of the realms of haus greuel to object of desire in Germany, but it seems the dawn has broken at last! An exhibition of Scheurich ceramics from the 1950s, 60s & 70s opened at the town museum of Miltenburg on the 10th October […]
You can’t have any more. They’re all gone! My very first publication, produced in association with the Graham Cooley Collection, has completely sold out. I’ve even sold the ‘seconds’ due to a rash of desperate requests over the past few weeks. The reason for this? Fat Lava has gone volcanic! It has appeared in all […]
Last month I was given £200! Of course, there’s no such thing as free money, just as much as there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I had been asked by BBC Homes & Antiques magazine to spend this princely sum on collectables of the future at the UK’s biggest and best antiques and […]
It’s funny who you meet in this industry, and how easy it is to make friends. Wandering around the now (sadly) defunct Alexandra Palace antiques and collectables fair in north London last year, I came across the most wonderful stall that contained all sorts of modern treasures as well as some rather lovely Fat Lava […]
Thanks to Els van Petersen for drawing my attention to a new contemporary art installation or exhibit (depending on your perspective) by Marieke van Diemen at the innovative Boijmans van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.The picture says it all – some 520 West German ceramic vases on display as part of a wider exhibition […]
It’s often amazing what crops up on eBay.de. Earlier this month I found a rather superb Ruscha bull, in the desirable ‘Vulcano’ glaze. According to Petra & Patrick Folkersma of Outernational, Ruscha made a small number of animals in the 1960s, including an elephant which was the earliest example made. The bull was made in […]
I’ve just got back from a working and (thankfully, latterly) pleasure weekend in Berlin. The results of my Fat Lava this time hunt were rather surprising! I found one design shop in trendy Mitte where they actually had a selection of Fat Lava on display in their vintage design section. This is the first time […]
New year’s resolutions, and all that, have finally pushed me to scan and post a couple of press articles from 2006 that may interest you. They just go to show how both West German ceramics and Mdina and Isle of Wight Studio Glass are spreading, and generally becoming more notable and noteworthy subjects. Some national […]