Nineteen Thirty Two
Although Charles Vyse attained his half century, Thursday 16th March, while Nell Vyse was just thirty-nine, at the studio environment, there was some disquiet over their standing in the world of studio pottery. Charles and Nell were keenly aware that their stoneware vessels, although championed by connoisseurs, suffered at the hands of a few notable art critics. In comparison with contemporary potters such as William Staite Murray, and Bernard Leach et al their stoneware was artistically undervalued. Fuerthermore, Vyse with an inflated sense of his own importance, was not to be overlooked, he was a Master Potter, a status to which the majority of his contemporaries could not aspire. The Vyses wanted to concentrate their efforts on stoneware vessels decorated with the …show more content…
This was a cleft stick situation, which left them little time for their bread and butter work, the production of the figures. Additionally, they were forced to introduce further figure subjects, which they decided to decorate with a plain ash glaze. To facilitate this, Walker’s Monthly, December 1932, published monochrome photographs of the original clay models of three new figures: Sea Horse, The Gypsy Queen, and Cat. These black and white photographs dating from 1928 to 1938 are of value in that they demonstrate the pristine qualities of the original models. The thickness of a glaze or worn moulds can often blur the crispness of the modelling.
Vyse The Sea-Horse
For the 1932, Walker’s Exhibition the Vyses illustrated their private view card with a monochrome photograph of their new figure group titled, Sea Horse, which is often and perhaps fittingly referenced, Amphitrite astride a Hippocampus. The