The timelessness of Linn Ware

Strauss & Co is honoured to present a single-owner collection of 20th-century ceramics from the Johannesburg collector Juanita Bird. The collection consists of prime examples from renowned potteries Globe, Ceramic Studio and the iconic Linn Ware. 

It captures the history of studio ceramics in South Africa in the first half of the 20th century, a history pitted against the relentless advances of technological progress and mass production at the time.

The origins of Linn Ware

To understand the importance of Linn Ware in the context of South African art history, one must go back to the origins of ceramic production in Olifantsfontein, east of Midrand, in Gauteng. In the early 20^th century, this was an undeveloped rural area.

Sir Thomas Cullinan (the randlord and mining magnate after whom the world’s largest diamond is named) started Transvaal Potteries in 1908. It did not last very long and came to an end around 1915. When Transvaal Potteries closed, Cullinan leased the premises to Gladys Short and Marjorie Johnston, who had both studied pottery at the Durban Technical College. Their new business, The Ceramic Studio, operated from the Olifantsfontein facility from 1925 until 1942, when it was repositioned and renamed Linn Ware. Production continued under the new name until 1962.

“The works of these studios bear testimony to the creative vision of a group of potters, most of them women, who put South African studio ceramics on the map. They set the standards of aesthetic originality and technical excellence for decorative pottery in South Africa in the mid-twentieth century and paved the way for subsequent potteries to continue to articulate a uniquely South African voice,” says Dr Wendy Gers, independent curator and expert on South African ceramics.

Beautiful objects for everyday use

“Ceramics are among the most complicated, most involved works of art,” says Robert D Mowry, Curator of Chinese Art at Harvard Art Museums.  “There are the clays, the glazes, the different decorative types; then there are the kilns and the firing temperatures. So many things have to be exactly right to achieve perfection,” he explains.

The characteristic luminosity of Linn Ware is due to the studio’s particular double-glazing technique. “If you look at the glazes of Linn Ware, it must have been such a time-consuming process. It is a bit like Delft. First, the potters covered the vessel to create a white porcelain look, and then they added their cobalt blue or iron oxide to the glaze to create those rich green, jade, and indigo colours. There are so many colour variations ­– that is what makes Linn Ware so unique,” remarks Esther Esmyol, Iziko Curator of Social History Collections and the William Fehr Collection.

Linn Ware is characterised by its distinctive, deep green and turquoise glazes, although items were also glazed in russet, pale grey, cream, yellow, lilac, rhubarb, and mulberry.

Linn Ware and its predecessor The Ceramic Studio were heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, explains Dr Melanie Hillebrand, renowned art historian and author of the Women of Olifantsfontein (South African National Gallery, Cape Town, 1991). The Arts and Crafts movement, most closely associated with designer William Morris, started in Britain in the mid-19th century as a reaction to the inhumanity of mass-produced factory-made products.

“The idea was that you could beautify your life by using unique pieces of pottery or making beautiful, handmade craftwork,” she says. The potters were inspired by Chinese ceramic art and the Japanese aesthetic philosophy of Shibui, which refers to the appreciation of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty. 

The influence of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) on Linn Ware is remarkable, according to Esmyol. “With Linn Ware, you also get these beautiful cobalt blue and celadon green colours that you often encounter with Song ceramics,” but they extended their range of signature glazes to include hues of jade, turquoise, emerald and a medley of sea green and teal.

Lot 61 on the current Strauss & Co online-only sale is a Linn Ware cream and russet-glazed vase and bowl (estimate R200 – R400). These items are reminiscent of the simplicity of British potter Bernard Leach’s work, another influence that was widely felt in international studio ceramics during the 20^th century. Lot 3, a Linn Ware iridescent blue, green and brown-glazed vase (estimate R5000 – R7000) is one of the auction highlights and demonstrates the Linn Ware artists’ skill in combining different pigments and minerals to achieve the hypnotic swirls and subtle hues that characterise this stand-out piece.

Opportunity for collectors

The lots on the auction are priced competitively from R10 000 down to less than R1000, offering novice collectors a foot in the door. Even though the pieces were produced over half a century ago, Linn Ware is timeless and the items were made to be used.

The beauty of Linn Ware is its versatility. The pieces fit as effortlessly into the contemporary mid-century modern inspired interior as they do into the worldly collector’s cabinet of curiosities alongside artefacts gathered from travels across the globe.

Linn Ware comes from South Africa’s own soil, and to own a ceramic piece produced in the Olifantsfontein studio is to buy in to a significant period of South African art history.

This online-only auction opened for bidding at 8 am on Wednesday 10 November and closes at 8 pm on Monday 15 November 2021.

Visit www.straussart.co.za to view the complete auction catalogue and register to bid.

The works are on display in Strauss & Co’s Johannesburg exhibition space at 89 Central Street, Houghton.

For more information, please call 011 728 8246 or send an email to jhb@straussart.co.za.