Decorative Art Collecting : passion and fashion || A pioneering Californian collection of English Studio and Art Pottery

The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present

A pioneering Californian collection of English Studio and Art PotteryAuthor(s): Peter RoseSource: The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, No. 24, Decorative ArtCollecting : passion and fashion (2000), pp. 98-109Published by: The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the PresentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41809300 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 10:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.54 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 10:25:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=das

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41809300?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']



A pioneering Californian

collection of English Studio

and Art Pottery

Peter Rose

In the mid nineteen seventies two young Americans, having established a highly successful antique coin dealing business, used their new wealth to assemble a massive collection of late nineteenth and twentieth century English ceramics. With extraordinary rapidity it became the finest of its kind in the world. Their home in the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles became a shrine to the Martin Brothers, Doulton & Co and Art Pottery generally. The initial interest in late nineteenth century ceramics later extended to the twentieth century studio ceramicists, Hans Coper, Lucie Rie, Liz Fritsch and the American potter, Beatrice Wood.

The volatility, ruthless determination and the sheer speed and extravagance with which the partners Allen Harriman (1) and Edward Judd (2) pursued their passion, made them legends in the collecting and dealing worlds in the 1970s and 1980s. Misfortune struck twice, firstly when Allen Harriman died in 1985 after a long and distressing illness, and secondly in 1999 when Edward died after a sudden heart attack. Effectively the span of their joint collecting was scarcely more than ten years and, after a mere thirty years from start to finish, the collection itself is now to be dispersed.

Coinciding with the formation of the Harriman- Judd collection, late nineteenth century artefacts, including painting, sculpture, decorative arts and architecture, were undergoing a fundamental reappraisal. In Britain the Victorian Society, founded in 1959 and led by such diverse talents as John Betjeman and Nikolaus Pevsner exerted a great influence on public perception of architecture and, to a lesser extent, the decorative arts. Throughout the sixties pioneer works by dealers and enthusiasts such as Jeremy Maas and Christopher Wood, museum experts and scholars such as Graham Reynolds (3) helped to re-establish Victorian painting in popular taste. In the area of collecting Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read led the field, amassing a pioneering collection ofVictorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1972 (4). The tragic death of both partners the previous autumn, during preparation for the RA Exhibition, was a cruel blow to all concerned with the reappraisal ofVictorian Art and artefacts, prefiguring the untimely deaths of Harriman and Judd.

Frontispiece to article & Fig. 8. Breakfast room: detail of corner cabinet with a collection of frog and mouse groups & Merry Musicians by George Tinworth.

Allen Harriman and Edward Judd initially had little knowledge of the Victorian revival, which had scarcely penetrated to the West Coast of America. They nevertheless were caught up in its secondary manifestations, mainly visible in newly modish shops specialising in nineteenth century antiques. More directly relevant to their collecting enthusiasm was the sequence of selling exhibitions staged in London Galleries and shops. In the field of late nineteenth century ceramics Richard Dennis was the leading spirit, staging a succession of ground breaking shows which rehabilitated the products of the major potteries. Throughout the seventies and early eighties these exhibitions accompanied by thoroughly researched and well illustrated catalogues offered eager collectors such as Harriman and Judd unparalleled opportunities for building up substantial "instant" collections. Each exhibitions in turn re-invigorated or, in some cases, established a new collecting field which in turn stimulated museums to put on display, mount their own exhibitions and purchase further pieces for their permanent collections. Doulton & Co was a particularly striking example of this process with two Richard Dennis exhibitions, in 1971 and 1975, the latter held at the Fine Art Society (5), followed in 1979 by The Doulton Story at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1980 the Royal Doulton International Collectors Club was formed, publishing a quarterly magazine which, over the next decade, provided hundreds of well researched articles on every aspect of this rapidly expanding collecting field (6). Other fields of ceramics benefiting from a similar process, each in turn seized upon by Harriman and Judd, were Pilkingtons 'Royal Lancastrian Lustreware', Mintons Majolica ware, Delia Robbia ware, William de Morgan and perhaps most spectacularly, from the viewpoints of the Californian collectors, the Martin Brothers.

My personal involvement with the Harriman Judd Collection began in the late 1970s when their core collection was being assembled. The occasion of our first meeting I can time and date very precisely. It was a few minutes before six o'clock on the evening of September 25th 1978; an untidy crowd was gathering outside a small gallery in Motcomb St Belgravia. They had all received an elaborately modelled pottery invitation to a selling exhibition of Martin Brothers pottery organised by Richard Dennis and accompanied by a newly published work on the brothers by Malcolm Haslam (7). Most of the crowd were strangers eyeing each other warily and with scarcely concealed rivalry. In that bustling crowd I observed two Americans noisily making sure that they would be first in the queue to enter the gallery. I soon discovered that this rather assertive couple were called Allen Harriman and Edward Judd, whom I had heard about as voracious collectors but had never met.

The doors opened and the motley crowd charged in to be confronted by a challenging array of Martin

99



Brothers Birds and pots, the largest collection of Martin Brothers pottery ever assembled. The normal procedure would have been for everyone to have sedately toured the exhibition, decided on a purchase or two, and then secured it by registering it with the desk clerk. But the buyers had reckoned without the two Americans who immediately set up a buying ring between them. One stationed himself immediately in front of the desk clerk, blocking any other potential purchaser, while the other loudly called out the numbers of chosen pieces as he rapidly swept his eyes along the shelves of birds and pots. Between them they completely commandeered the attention of the clerk excluding all rival buyers. Eventually, with almost a third of the exhibition sold to them, they relaxed their monopoly and allowed me to secure one of the few remaining birds for my collection. Harsh words were said about American pushiness which was not unnoticed, as one was heard to say to the other. "OK let s behave just like the stereotype the English hold about the Americans."

A few days later at the nearby Sotheby Belgravia saleroom I became aware of them again. In conjunction with the Richard Dennis exhibition, the Decorative Arts Society ran a day seminar which I organised. During my lecture I referred to a piece of sculptural pottery by Mark Marshall, which I had spied in Richard

Dennis's shop in Church Street, Kensington a day or so earlier. I had photographed it and shown the image on the screen. There was a sudden eruption of noise and two figures rose from their seats and rapidly disappeared. About twenty minutes later a further disruption heralded their return. It was of course Harriman and Judd clutching the very piece of pottery I had shown, which they had instantly gone and purchased from the shop.

Two dealer friends, Rita and Ian Smythe, had brought the Americans along to the seminar and afterwards introduced them to my partner Albert Gallichan and myself. A visit to our house the following Saturday was arranged for them to see our own collection. With such a fearsome reputation for acquisitiveness we were apprehensive that they would break a paramount social rule, that in no way should a guest even hint that any item in a private collection might be for sale. This rule was made very clear to them by Rita and Ian Smythe, who reported later that Allen Harriman had responded, "looking wide eyed and innocent" by saying "How could you ever think we could be so rude" (8).

All went well until the moment before departing when suddenly Allen Harriman, who had been busily scribbling on a notepad throughout the tour of the house, thrust the bundle of notes into my hand saying

Fig. 1. The Harriman, Judd House, Los Angeles: main sitting room. In the foreground are groups of Martin ware and Doulton saltglaze pottery.

100



"Now, I don't want to appear pushy, but should you ever change your mind, these are the items I want to buy, what about it!".

For some moments the shock waves of colliding cultures bounced between us. Then we all dissolved into helpless laughter : they were incorrigible, irresistible, and soon became the greatest of friends. As our friendship developed I discovered more and more about the background to their collecting. The story unfolded as, over the next few years, I became increasingly involved in their collecting activities. I spent time in their magnificent house in Los Angeles (fig 1, 2), acted as an extra pair of eyes and ears in England and Europe; advised on purchases, and tactfully steered them towards ordering and cataloguing their collection. The transatlantic telephone, still a somewhat exotic form of communication, was constantly buzzing.

Their pace and enthusiasm for collecting was dazzling. The scale of it was completely outside my experience. I was used to, at most, a weekly purchase, subject to very limited funds. The two Americans on a buying spree would gobble up as much in a few

moments. Collectors come in all shapes and sizes, from the compulsive, unstoppable accumulator to the once- in-a-blue-moon connoisseur : the collection, over the twenty or more years that I have observed it has progressed from the first to the last position.

Harriman and Judd met in the mid nineteen-fifties when both were young men in their early twenties; neither came from wealthy backgrounds, although Allen Harriman was related to Averill Harriman who was famed as an internationally respected diplomat, and also extremely rich. His wife Pamela became a diplomat later. Both Averill and Pamela Harriman were household names, which Allen Harriman shamelessly exploited, possibly exaggerating his family links in order to gain social privileges for himself and his friends. On a visit to Las Vegas with the two collectors, I was startled to hear announced on the public address system of the hotel, the presence of the distinguished "son" of Averill Harriman; the aim of the subterfuge was evidently to secure tickets for a Frank Sinatra concert. Edward Judds family in contrast had no such pretentions, and when he was a child, they had driven across the states from

Fig. 2. Dining room: Doulton saltglaze pottery by Hannah Barlow, Frank Butler, & Faience ware by Florence Lewis. On the sideboard ceramics by William de Morgan.

101



New York to California in the family car, settling in Los Angeles to start a new life. As partners Harriman and Hudd dealt successfully in coins, particularly American silver dollars. This was a knife-sharp world of wheeler dealing with many thousands of dealers and collectors vying with each other for a market advantage. In the trade the pair were treated with great respect, even reverence, mainly as a consequence of "The Coin Dealer's Newsletter", a weekly subscription publication which they had founded and continued to run until Allen Harriman's final illness. The newsletter was compulsory reading for anyone remotely connected with coin dealing or collecting. The great success and financial rewards of this venture made the scale of their collecting mania possible. Their first pottery purchase, a piece of Doulton and Co Stoneware was made locally, but early visits to England, a country they both instantly fell in love with and continued to visit frequently throughout their lives, set the pattern. By good fortune and a "good eye" they focussed on English Art Pottery which by the late sixties was beginning to be collected again after half a century of neglect. Encouraged by friends and dealers they began to build a collection, greatly helped by the series of pioneering exhibitions described earlier.

Transposing a type of pottery characterised by its robust almost crude earthiness to the shiny brilliance of Los Angeles demanded both imagination and flair. In the early stages the collection was mainly Art Pottery, a type of salt glazed stoneware introduced by several Lambeth potteries as an extension to their mainstay production of utilitarian wares such as sewage piping. Indeed initially the pots were fired in the same kilns, and bear the marks in the form of drips, chipping and such like defects. By the mid seventies the partners had moved to a magnificent Spanish colonial style mansion dating from the 1920s built in what was then the most fashionable part of Hollywood. The house began to be filled with fine English Furniture, mainly from an earlier era than the pottery; paintings from all periods including modern artists, also predominantly English; and inevitably many hundreds of pieces of spectacular pottery.

The celebrity of the collection grew rapidly and in 1981 was given lavish coverage in "The Connoisseur" which, at the end of the seventies, was the most prestigious international Antiques magazine. A major article by the editor Paul Atterbury called "Victorian attitudes in Hollywood" (9) reveals what the collection looked like in the early eighties when most of the major pieces had been acquired and exhibited in uninhibited splendour in their Hollywood house, (fig 1, 2)

The opening paragraph gives the flavour of the house which has remained virtually unchanged to this day. Knowledgeable readers may detect a thin veil of disguise over the location: -

The house stands in Beverly Hills, largely hidden from view by trees. The steep, winding drive

Fig. 3. Main sitting room: corner cabinet - with pottery by the Martin brothers.

climbs past the swimming pool, overlooking the lawn with its cluster of lemon and lime trees, and then the house comes into view. Long and low, a classic example of the Spanish colonial style, it was built in 1924 and is still unchanged. As such it is a reflection of the early period of colonisation of the Beverly Hills, when the first generation of successful movie stars, directors and tycoons moved out of the city into what was then wild and undeveloped countryside. Over the years other houses have been built all around as the city has spread steadily outwards and so the original feeling of isolation, the pioneer spirit, has inevitably been lost. Despite this, the house still retains it's privacy, screened from later development by banks of trees and shrubbery; and it still enjoys a remarkable view over Los Angeles. (10) Later in the article the contents are described in

enthusiastic terms:- Everywhere in the house, displayed on every available surface, filling every cabinet and overflowing into the kitchen and larder is a huge, magnificent and all encompassing collection of English art and studio pottery, the largest to be found anywhere in the world. (11)

Increasingly the Harriman and Judd collection was in demand by museum curators. The earliest occasion was for the Doulton Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1979, and for several years in the

102



Fig. 4. Main sitting room: cabinet with collection of Royal Lancastrian lustreware.

eighties a representative selection of fifteen or so spectacular pieces was put on display at the Los Angeles County Museum. The attitude of the collectors to documenting and recording their collection became more positive and purposeful and the idea of celebrating it all in a series of lavishly produced catalogues took root. My own researches into George Tinworth, a sculptor potter who worked at Doulton and Co, until his death in 1913, provided an irresistible opportunity to combine a life of Tinworth with a catalogue of the magnificent assembly of his work in the collection. This was published as the first part of a projected twelve volume series covering all aspects of the collection in 1982 (12). In my introduction to the book I described the Tinworth Group as "undoubtedly the largest and most varied concentration of his work assembled", but many other aspects of the collection also, could have been described in similar terms. It was intended that these would be covered in subsequent volumes.

In the autumn of 1984 two years after the completion of" George Tinworth" I published my own attempt to describe the experience of the house and its collection (13). I had embarked on the second volume

of the series of catalogues, having selected as its subject the women pottery decorators who worked for Doulton particularly Hannah and Florence Barlow. The title of the article was "Hannah in Hollywood" and I wrote:

The sheer size of the collection is overwhelming and somewhat daunting to the researcher. Almost one hundred and fifty pieces by Hannah, over eighty pieces by Florence, at least seventy pieces by Vera Huggins, a hundred pieces by Eliza Simmance, to mention only a few of the better known women artists. Many are shown in cabinets set in an octagon room specially created for displaying choice groups from the collection. More are set in or on period English furniture ranging in date and style from the eighteenth century to Edwardian Art Nouveau. A huge residue lurks under sinks, in cupboards, in the numerous compartments of a defunct refrigerator, in guest wardrobes and drawers. Most disconcertingly for a house guest in search of breakfast, serried ranks of them, line upon line, level upon level in the pantry, stonily return his hungry gaze.

103



In the same article I tried in a tactful way to capture the particular dynamics of a partnership which bore such spectacular fruit.

Allen Harriman and Edward Judd, who together created such an Elysium for the pottery enthusiast, have distinct and indeed sometimes conflicting attitudes and approaches to collecting. This creative tension has resulted in positive rather than negative outcomes. Even if the motive was bravado and the merit of the piece hotly contested, the disputed object having been obtained, would prove once again the instinctive but sure taste of the buyer. Some collecting partnerships exercise a power of

veto over the other's judgement, thus controlling excessive acquisitiveness. Judd and Harriman had no time for this, and shamelessly trumped each others judgement. The extravagance of one was instantly matched, if not exceeded, by the other, sometimes resulting in a rising crescendo of extravagant purchases. At one period Edward Judd made a practice of buying anything important enough to be featured on the cover of a sale catalogue; in retrospect this proved to be an inspired idea for it was in this way that the finest and largest Hans Coper vase was acquired, (fig 5) In the saleroom Allen Harriman refused to get involved in the various shady deals aimed at fixing prices or sharing out the choice items. On at least one occasion this provoked an open row in the saleroom with a rival collector. Not surprisingly the salerooms enjoyed a boom time.

Tales of the partners single minded pursuit of their quarry are legion. Rita and Ian Smythe recall an occasion when they were accompanying the Americans on a buying trip to Northern England. During a wait

Fig. 5. Hans Coper: large stoneware vase, 45.3 cm., purchased 1980.

at a small town for the train connection they decided to explore a nearby Antique Centre. Allen Harriman spied a splendid Eliza Simmance Doulton vase on a closed stall. They discovered that the owner was attending the wedding of his daughter that day at a local church. Abandoning the train connection they arrived at the church only to discover that the marriage ceremony was in progress. Undaunted, a message was passed up the aisle to the father, causing general consternation. This was fortunately received as a huge joke, and in consequence, the whole wedding party trooped down to the antique market where the purchase was made, followed by the wedding feast, which they all attended.

Following the process of acquisition, from purchase to the final positioning in the Hollywood house, is very revealing of how collections are handled in transit. Items acquired at such a phenomenal rate, created considerable logistical problems of handling and transport. Fortunately the major hurdle of shipping costs was resolved by a neat arrangement with a Los Angeles antique dealer who regularly filled a container with English furniture on his buying trips to Europe. The partners had provided financial help in setting up his business, and in return they exacted from him entirely charge-free transport, much to the dealer's dismay, who found his profits severely dented by the agreement.

The goods were first assembled at a London storage depot or in friends' houses, and then examined for condition. Any damage had first to be "fixed" by a firm of restorers called Monogram Studios, who operated from premises in Congleton. The firm was considered the "Rolls-Royce" of repairers and claimed royal patronage. On several occasions a casual comment would be made by the owner about the constant demand for their services from a royal household, with the remark "she's still throwing them at him you know"; the identity of the thrower I will leave to the reader's imagination. After close inspection the restored object was shipped to America.

When a consignment arrived at the Hollywood house the crates were unpacked by the Mexican gardener and transferred through the garage and service wing to the kitchen, which had a huge flat central working surface. At this point the final sorting out was done, sometimes over a period of weeks or months. Eventually a choice minority of objects was placed on prominent display in the reception rooms, but the remainder was stuffed away anywhere that provided space (as described earlier in the extract from "Hannah in Hollywood"). The kitchen also provided a perch for their social secretary, an Englishwoman of great refinement who had previously performed a similar function for such Hollywood luminaries as Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. A bitter war of attrition was fought out between her and the resident housekeeper of strict and narrow religious convictions,

104



who appeared to be in a constant state of disapproval at the extravagant goings on.

But the optimism and confidence which provoked such exuberant behaviour was short lived. Allen Harriman developed a serious illness and in May 1985 he died. Although Edward Judd tried to continue the momentum of the publications, the dynamics had changed, and eventually the only outcome was a modest life of Hannah Barlow published to coincide with an exhibition at Christies in London (14).

However Edward Judd continued to collect, although, without the competition of Allen Harriman, at his own slower, more considered pace. These new purchases increasingly reflected his own distinctive interests, particularly in the field of contemporary studio pottery and in an entirely new area, that of photography. This new drive also reflected the interests of his new partner, the architect Cary Stevens, who brought a fresh eye to these novel fields.

The collection became more ordered and orderly. There were fewer pots scattered artfully, or haphazardly (depending on your taste) on floors and tables. In addition the very real fear of an earthquake consigned a large proportion of the collection to a specially designed secure store. This decision proved to be the salvation of the large majority of the pieces when an earthquake did indeed strike, and several of the remaining free-standing vases and objects were thrown to the ground and damaged or destroyed. Consolidation and discrimination had replaced the old headlong acquisition scramble, for the pottery collection, pre- eminent in its chosen field, was to all intents and purposes, complete. In 1999 fate again intervened without warning and with a brutality which none could have remotely anticipated. Edward Judd died suddenly of a heart attack, and with his death terminated an extraordinary collecting odyssey.

In the last year of Edward Judd's life a new and much more ambitious display of pottery pieces from the collection had been mounted in a sequence of display cases, occupying an alcove, in one of the decorative arts galleries of the Los Angeles County Museum. The curator of Decorative Arts, Martin Chapman, worked closely with the collectors in selecting representative pieces reflecting the diversity and range of the pottery. In the centre was a free-standing glass case containing a ferocious gathering of Martin Birds, (fig 6) Behind and at the sides were seven cases set in the walls displaying groups of choice pieces by the leading ceramic decorators and potters of the art pottery movement: Hannah and Florence Barlow, George Tinworth, Mark Marshall, Frank Butler, Harry Simeon, and Eliza Simmance from Doulton and Co., and Edwin and Robert Wallace Martin from the Martin Brothers studio.

The display at L.A.C.M.A. was impressive enough, but limitations of space and the sheer quantity of pieces to choose from imposed severe limitations on what

Fig. 6. Robert Wallace Martin: three grotesque bird "tobacco jars".

could be shown. Similarly any description of a collection as large as the Harriman-Judd must inevitably be highly selective, so this account of the collection will only have space to refer to a small proportion of the most significant pieces.

Almost certainly one of the most ambitious vases ever produced is the History of England vase of 1892 made by George Tinworth (fig 7) shown at the Chicago World Fair in 1893. It was the centrepiece of the Doulton exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Fig. 7. Main sitting room: History of England vase by George Tinworth.

105



Fig. 8. Breakfast room: corner cabinet with a collection of frog and mouse groups & Merry Musicians by George Tinworth.

in 1979, lent by Harriman and Judd soon after they had purchased it (15). The vase , in saltglaze stoneware, is 5IV2 " (131cm) high: the circle of figures at the top represents an array of twenty British rulers, and the circle of groups of figures in the middle illustrates scenes from British history. By any comparable measure it represents an extraordinary achievement by a sculptor celebrated by John Ruskin as a great English workman "full of fire and zealous faculty".

However, Tinworth had his lighter side and devoted a day a week to anthropomorphic, fanciful mice and frog groups. Most serious critics have been dismissive of these jokey items, but contemporary collectors, including Harriman and Judd, value them more highly than the religious panels which were his mainstay throughout his career. In 1982, when the Tinworth book was published, over forty examples were illustrated in the catalogue section: many are displayed in a cabinet in the Hollywood house (fig 8). Perhaps the most elaborate of all these light-hearted pieces is the Menagerie clock of 1885 which formed the centrepiece of one of the L.A.C.M.A. display cases. It depicts the entrance to a fairground side-show - a favourite childhood memory of Tinworth. There is a mouse orchestra and a mouse master of ceremonies at the front, but round the side a captive elephant is stealing apples from a stall.

Mark Marshall, another Doulton artist, who had previously worked for the Martin Brothers, was greatly admired and much collected by Harriman and Judd.

He was second only to Tinworth in his reputation for brilliant and inventive designs. From an early stage in their collecting they both recognised Marshall's pre- eminence and purchased superb pieces, managing to outbid the market even when national museums were competing. The Salamander vase (fig 10) was purchased at Sotheby's Belgravia, a sale room specialising in the nineteenth century, a period not then considered worthy of the Bond Street setting. At the time, the vase was recognised as being of exceptional quality and was sold for a then record price of over ¿£1000. Marshall's control of clay and glazes is masterly, and with his work potting and decoration are integral. Each piece he produced is a fresh essay in creativity and originality and, although he worked in a factory environment, his work relates far more clearly to the studio mode than to the "Art" potter.

Two sisters, Hannah and Florence Barlow were the most distinguished of the women employees at Doulton and Co. Women were by far the largest group employed as pottery decorators, the men forming a small minority. Although, elsewhere in the factory, in the clay preparation, throwing and firing, the employees were exclusively male. No doubt for reasons ofVictorian respectability and seemliness the men were segregated from the women, which led inevitably to an unfortunate division between the throwing of a pot and its decoration. Hannah Barlow however, who was one of the earliest to join the factory, appears on occasion to have been able to control the clay form as well as its

Fig. 9. Hannah Barlow: Doulton vase with a frieze of galloping horses.

106



Fig. 10. Mark Marshall: Doulton vase with entwined salamander.

decoration. (As quoted earlier the Harriman Judd collection contains over one hundred and fifty pieces by Hannah and over eighty pieces by Florence.) The great majority of the many thousands of pottery pieces produced by the sisters, in their lifelong employment at Doulton and Co., used scraffito decoration on the saltglaze stoneware. Hannah specialised in animals and Florence in birds and they both spent much of their leisure time in sketching directly from nature. In common with most of the other women decorators they had received their art training under John Sparkes at the Lambeth School (16). A large two-handled vase with a freeze of running horses in the Harriman Judd collection captures the dexterity and freedom of Hannah Barlow's style, (fig 9)

There is no doubť that the products of the Martin Brothers, three of whom worked at their studio at Southall fascinated and excited Harriman and Judd more than any other potters, with the possible exception of George Tinworth. Like Tinworth, the Martin family grew up in London, but in rather more affluent circumstances. Although still relatively poor, they did not suffer the privations which beset Tinworth in childhood. Robert Wallace Martin, the oldest and most eccentric of the brothers, attended the Lambeth school

at the same time as Tinworth; they were exact contemporaries and became friends. Following Tinworth's employment at Doulton and Co., the two younger brothers, Edwin and Walter, served an apprenticeship in his studio (17) These links between the various artists favoured by Harriman and Judd, of which initially they were unaware, brought a consistency to the collection which gives it an extraordinary impact and coherence when seen grouped together. Cabinets, table tops and floor areas provided opportunities for assembling, usually in close proximity, startling juxtapositions of the pottery, together with bronzes and examples of contemporary ceramics. The most arresting of these groupings is however the grotesque birds and monsters created by Robert Wallace Martin (fig 6) for which he has always been celebrated. They defy categorisation, being simultaneously fascinating and repellent. The early birds, dating from approximately 1880, are however friendly whimsical creatures with droopy beaks, possibly the result of technical limitations. These early efforts, called "Wallybirds", had detached heads, initially fixed in one position, but later rotatable, greatly adding to the humour. By the mid eighties the birds had become truly sinister embodying a spirit of evil which can be very disturbing. These creatures are a fair cry from the popular sentimentalised anthropomorphic, animals-behaving-as-humans, approach. Indeed their sinister and treacherous appearance stems from a reversal of that approach: humans trapped in the guise of an animal or bird, as in a primitive myth.

When Robert Martin explored the animal word in his sculptural fantasies, his vision becomes even more nightmarish, full of evil almost surreal in its imagery. Although, in later life, there was an occasional return to a jollier, more saleable type of creature, the poisonous secretions of his increasingly wild religious mania brought him back to the creatures from hell, a fate he was always threatening to others (18).

In complete contrast to Robert Martin his younger brother Edwin had a gentle, sunny disposition which he revealed in a personal and highly distinctive type of pottery based on natural gourd-like forms (fig 3). His organic forms, with their texturings, spotting and ribbing, derive naturally from his studies of flowers, plants and insects, the main subject of his earlier work, which used the scraffito technique to delineate the river bank near their pottery at Southall.

The Martinware collection comprising several hundred pieces, together with the many hundreds of examples of artist designed Doultonware, form the core of the Harriman Judd collection many of the highest quality. Other types of late nineteenth and twentieth century were also enthusiastically collected in some quantity including De Morgan, Burmantofts, Bernard Moore, Ruskinware, Wedgwood, Majolica ware (fig 13), Moorcroft, Royal Lancastrian lustreware (fig 4), and, post 1950, studio artists such as Hans Coper, Lucie Rie (fig 11), and Elizabeth Fritsch.

107



Fig. 11. Lucie Rie: Three vases.

The stimulus for embarking on the formation of a collection of these particular potteries or artists, was usually a specialist exhibition accompanied by a scholarly catalogue. (The wholesale acquisition of choice pieces at such exhibitions has already been described and I acted as advisor on several of these occasions.)

At one stage, when interest had shifted to contemporary studio pottery and illness prevented the partners from coming to England, I was entrusted with a very large budget in order to acquire the bulk of an important studio potter s exhibition. The occasion was a display of work by Elizabeth Fritsch organised by David Queensbury, which marked her return to active pottery making, after a gap of several years (19) (fig 12).

Fig. 12. Elizabeth Fritsch: Three vases purchased from "Pots from Nowhere" exhibition 1984.

With a shrewd sense of how to excite a frenzy of competitive avarice, the organiser had arranged a special pre-private view for museum purchasers only Financial muscle ensured that Harriman Judd were included and I found myself representing them, together with a dozen or so museum curators, each struggling to make instant judgements on the quality and desirability of individual pieces. The organiser, knowing about my lavish budget, in a laudable attempt to establish a level playing field, initially allowed me to make only three purchases. However he became increasingly impatient as the museums' contingent , with limited budgets, understandably took their time to make up their minds, so he allowed me to make a further three, and then a further three and so on. Red stickers marking my purchases began to proliferate and the general sense of panic increased as the most desirable exhibits were secured, until much to the relief of the curators, who had still not made up their minds, I announced a truce. Regrettably only a few items remained unsold, but the organiser, knowing that I had not fully spent the total sum available, became very testy, pressing further items on me, which I had already rejected as being unsuitable. The experience was an important lesson in the power of financial muscle, something which Harriman and Judd enjoyed throughout their collecting days.

Plentiful financial resources make it possible to buy the finest examples of a particular artist or type of object in sufficient quantity to build up a significant collection. However, without the ability to discriminate using a discerning eye and knowledge of the field, such a collection would be no more than a vast accumulation. Both partners possessed an acquisitive appetite and an instinctive visual flair: Allen Harriman had the greater appetite, tenaciously and ruthlessly pursuing his latest quarry; Edward Judd, with the more adventurous visual flair, had an instant eye for exceptional quality and needed no academic re-enforcement to back his own convictions. It is therefore not surprising that it was Harriman more than Judd who encouraged the development of scholarly knowledge, which led to the book on George Tinworth and potentially the other publications based on the collection.

The combination of the maverick passion of Allen Harriman, the visual acuity of Edward Judd and, in recent years, the measured and discerning judgement of Cary Stevens, created together a world class collecting team. The result is far too vast to be covered fully or systematically, except perhaps through those twelve volumes of catalogues which were so optimistically envisaged in the early 1980s but failed to be completed.

Peter Rose was formerly the Head of Combined Arts at the University of Brighton. Author of George Tinworth and of Hannah Barlow , he has also published pieces on W.A.S. Benson, Harry Powell, Robert Anning Bell and others in the Arts and Crafts movement.

108



NOTES 1 Allen Harriman, 1933 - 1995. 2 Edward Judd 1936 - 1999. 3 Victorian Painting, Graham Reynolds, Studio Vista 1966. Victorian Painting, Jeremy Maas, Barrie and Rockliff 1969. The Dictionary of Victorian Painters, Christopher Wood, Antique Collectors Club 1971. 4 Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Art: The Handley-Read Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1972. 5 Doulton Stoneware Pottery 1870- 1925, Part 1. Kensington Church Street, London 1971. Doulton Pottery from the Lambeth and Burslem Studios 1873 - 1939, Part 2. Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, London 1975. The F.A.S. mounted a series of outstanding and groundbreaking exhibitions throughout the seventies and eighties. 6 The Royal Doulton International Collectors Club published four issues each year until the end of 1990 when its headquarters was re- located from London to Stoke-on-Trent. Its two successive editors, Paul Atterbury and Louise Irvine, achieved, against all odds, a successful combination of promoting modern figurines and limited editions, together with scholarly pieces on the traditional stoneware and faience products of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 7 The Martin Brothers Potters, Malcolm Haslam, Richard Dennis 1978. 8 I am grateful to Rita and Ian Smythç for recounting this and other revealing glimpses of Harriman and Judd's collecting style. 9 The Connoisseur. Volume 208 No 836 October 1981 "Victorian Attitudes in Hollywood: Exuberant English pottery in a 1920s mansion" by Paul Atterbury pp 104-110.

10 Ibid pi 05. 11 Ibid pi 08. 12 George Tinworth, Harriman-Judd Collection. Volume I by Peter Rose, CDN Corp, USA 1982. 13 "Hannah in Hollywood" by Peter Rose. Royal Doulton International Collectors Club. Volume 4 No 3 Autumn 1984 pp 7, 8. 14 Hannah Barlow: a Doulton Artist by Peter Rose, Richard Dennis, London 1985. 15 The Doulton Story, Paul Atterbury and Louise Irvine, Victoria and Albert Museum, 30 May - 12 August 1979, p 13. 16 For further details of the career of the great art educator see "John Charles Lewis Sparkes 1833-1907" by Alex Werner in Decorative Arts Journal 13. 17 The remaining brother, Charles, ran the shop in Brownlow Street in the city, where he sold Martinware to city bankers, judges and the occasional tourist. 18 The Grotesque Ceramic Sculpture of Robert Wallace Martin (1842 - 1923), Peter Rose. Decorative Arts Society Journal 3. 19 "Pots from Nowhere", solo-exhibition, Royal College of Art organised by Queensbury Hunt 1984.

ILLUSTRATIONS The photographs for this article were taken by Anthony Cunha and supplied by courtesy of Cary Stevens.

109

Fig. 13. Mintons Majolica ware game pie dish: possibly designed by Mark Marshall, purchased 1982.



Documents

Decorative Art Collecting : passion and fashion || A pioneering Californian collection of English Studio and Art Pottery