WILLIAMSON, Elaine. ~ Archive of pottery designs for Crown Staffordshire, Coalport and Poole Pottery amongst others.
117 fine original pen and ink, pencil and watercolour finished designs, mainly for plates but also for teacups, mugs, nursery china, pots, dishes and vases as well as pen and ink drawings for animal patterns. Several with the blind stamp of Elaine Williamson, one signed. Also included are final transfers for 6 sets of china and two floral paintings signed with her initials both in gold mounts. A few pieces trade advertising literature for her designs for Crown Staffordshire, Coalport and Poole Pottery are included, some negatives of photos of some of her finished products, and some brochures for her own design consultancy she founded in the 1980s. Housed in three portfolios put together by the artist.
Elaine Williamson studied at Manchester College of Art and then went on to post-graduate study at Stoke-on-Trent, the centre of the English ceramic industry. Her professional career started at Crown Staffordshire and she then went on to to make designs for the Wedgwood Group, notably Coalport. In 1977 she was appointed Design Manager at Poole Pottery where she designed and introduced many new shapes and patterns, including a range of bone china which was a new departure for the important Dorset company. Many of her patterns were wildly successful and recognisable. She left Poole in 1986 to set up her own consultancy and kept designing throughout the 1990s - we have some of her brochures for 1994 and 1995 advertising her skills at creating shape and surface pattern design for bone china, porcelain and earthenware and packaging.
She was responsible for all the designs coming out of Poole Pottery for 10 years including flan dishes and other things for Marks and Spencer as well as the beautiful Embossed Gold for Crown Staffordshire and the delicate Severn range for Coalport.
Williamson’s archive gives us a excellent insight into styles of china and pottery in the 1970s and 1980s as well as the process of design for these products, which were such an important part of British industry and culture since the potteries began to develop in Stoke on Trent in the late 18th century.