My role as a Patron of the King’s Lynn Arts Centre means that I get to go to visit the town a fair few times each year. Every time I go, I always make time to pop up the road to visit The Old Granary Antiques Centre, on King’s Staithe Lane, as I always seems […]
Regular readers will know that I’m a huge fan of the Bath Decorative Fair, held annually in March just minutes walk from Bath’s bustling centre. You can read about my previous visits, one of which included hosting an exciting awards ceremony with Kirstie Allsopp, by clicking here and here. After being run by Robin Coleman […]
I’m delighted and excited to announce that I will be co-presenting a new primetime, evening show for BBC2 in early 2013. The subjects are collecting and collections – both are so close to my heart, they’re probably a rather large part of it, and the blood that it pumps around me! In three one hour […]
Kevin Graham of the Pottery & Glass Forum has alerted me to the fact that a number of vintage Fat Lava glazes and shapes by Otto Keramik are now being reproduced. So far, the shapes are the UFO vases shown in the image below and the bulls (sometimes called bison) that were originally produced by […]
It’s pretty typical for really rather good things to appear and come in just after I’ve printed a book on them. And, typically, those pieces answer a question that I hadn’t been able to solve before printing the book. In this instance it concerned Alla Moda, my new book on Italian mid-century pottery. My keen-eyed […]
Having spent an entire day the previous week at the vast and awesome National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, I was keen to find out more about Mayan ceramics. To be honest, I was actually more keen to own a bit as I always prefer that when looking into an area. Although my knowledge […]
The Portland vase is one of the most famous pieces of glass in the world, and is also amongst the oldest, finest and most celebrated. Made in ancient Rome around AD5-25, it can now be seen in the British Museum, having previously been in many prestigious collections. Collectors who owned it before 1810 include (in […]
As well as being relaxing, the two weeks I spent in Mexico for our Summer holiday this year were most revealing. I had never really considered Mexican design before and, although I had seen Mexican folk art, I hadn’t considered it properly. These two weeks gave ample opportunities, from visiting museums to wandering the streets […]
Those of you who have bought Alla Moda, my new book on mid-century Italian ceramics, will have seen a double page spread of quirky ceramics by an as yet unknown company and designer who ‘signs’ each piece with a stylised four petalled flower. I’ve pretty much fallen in love with them! At the Midcentury Fair […]
My friend and fellow mid-century pottery fan Emiel Monnink of Retrominded and I were chatting online last week. I had just met a friend of his at the excellent Ardingly antiques fair, and he had just found a piece of Italian pottery for me to look at. I found the story fascinating, and (almost) completely […]
It’s out and it’s on! Last Saturday I joined Graham Cooley at the King’s Lynn Arts Centre in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, to launch Alla Moda, the exhibition behind my latest book. With over 750 ceramics on display, Graham’s private collection is almost certainly the largest private collection of Italian ceramics in Europe, if not the […]
My new book on mid-century modern Italian ceramics, Alla Moda, has just arrived, and the exhibition is about to be launched. Sitting last night looking through the book made me remember the long journey I’ve made putting it together. I also thought about all the elements that went into making it, here are some statistics: […]