The Icon Collection presents a body of work that encompasses the impossible, the oversized, the complex and the unique, imagined and made in collaboration with the art and design world’s most respected and renowned designers and studios.
Each piece is at once a sculptural artform as well as functional object, pushing the boundaries of the material, the master potter’s expertise, and the artist or designer’s ingenuity. Made as either one-off pieces or as part of a limited edition, the works included in the Icon Collection challenge both designer and maker in terms of scale and intricacy, while paying homage to the exceptional talent of the British ceramic industry, past and present, and the traditional manufacturing heritage of Stoke-on-Trent where 1882 Ltd. is based.
Artists and designers include architect John Pawson, artists Barnaby Barford and Bruce McLean, creative polymaths Martyn Thompson, Max Lamb, Shona Heath, Yinka Ilori and Bethan Laura Wood, and ceramicists Amy J Hughes and Leah Jensen. Many of 1882 Ltd.’s Icon Collection pieces have originally been made for exhibitions and installations shown at prestigious cultural institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and Sotheby’s; all have been conceived to elevate the daring mastery and ultimate connection of the hand, eye and heart between designer and maker, creating fresh and vital works for today’s modern way of life.
1882 Ltd.
This stunning collection of unique vases showcase the incredible creative skill of 1882 Ltd.'s master potters. These oversized vessels are the product of 'Cabbage Days' - an industry term for time that potters spend in free, unguided creativity and production, without responding to a client or brief. A collaborative, in-house project project, the vases are hand thrown and built in our factory in Stoke, and then hand painted in glorious, unpredictable reactive glazes that surprise and delight both the potter and the customer.
Big Vase 1 & 2
You can never have too many flowers. The question is how big can the vase be? Big Vase starts life as a solid block of plaster that is hand carved by hammer and chisel into the shape of the vase. A three-part hollow mould is created from the carved plaster form allowing multiple vases to be slip-cast in fine bone china or black earthenware for Black Vase 1 & 2.
Cast Bowl
Cast Bowl is conceived as a quiet landscape in ceramic. Glazed in the palest of hues, the play of light and shadow generates endless small shifts of tone across its contours. The piece draws on a particular set of architectural preoccupations – with proportion, line, volume and the precise way in which mass engages with an underlying surface – combining apparent simplicity with rigorous geometry.
Flower
Slab built by Amy J Hughes, Flower was then turned into a slip cast mould. The six-hole vase is slip cast earthenware and then coloured slip painted by our master potters. The piece, which is mammoth in scale, is then fired leaving the exterior in a matt muted palette. One side is a stunning purple finished with black while the reverse is a sunshine yellow. Limited in edition to 25 pieces this is an exceptional piece not only in design, scale but also for the joy it brings to the beholder.
Garden Ware Platters
Acclaimed conceptual artist Bruce McLean debuted a vast new body of work titled Garden Ware which was on exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the London Design Festival 2017. The collection of platters includes one-off earthenware creations by Bruce.
Garden Ware Vessels
Acclaimed conceptual artist Bruce McLean debuted a vast new body of work titled Garden Ware which was on exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the London Design Festival 2017. The collection includes one-off earthenware creations by Bruce, including vases, bowls, platters as well as tableware.
Jesus & The Pope
Robbie Williams debuts four imaginative, dynamic and technicolour ceramic artworks.
Inspired by two drawings by Williams of Jesus and The Pope, the pieces have been brought to life by the masterful hands of 1882 Ltd.’s potters based in Stoke-on-Trent, not only the historical epicentre of British pottery but Williams’ childhood hometown.
Lilyfoot
Lilyfoot (they) is Heath’s first limited-edition exhibition piece with 1882 Ltd. Lilyfoot stands at 3ft high and 1.5ft wide, comprising of a mythical creature hand crafted from stoneware, protected under a stalk that is punctuated with 3 decorative stoneware leaves embedded with glowing orbs (there is also a glowing bubble at the end of Lilyfoot’s trumpet).
In addition, a giant fragile spoon has been hand moulded then cast and painted, inspired by one found by Heath from an African shop at the Ridley Road Market in east London and a favourite Italo Calvino short story entitled ‘The Distance of the Moon’ which made Heath imagine the spoon scooping up a loose pearl that Lilyfoot had dropped from the surface of the moon.
The result is not merely a sculptural lamp and a decorative spoon, but two unique creations born from one of the most inventive minds of her generation.
Penny Vase
Forming part of the Icon Collection the Penny Vases stands true to the ethos of the collection, large in scale, complex to make and limited in number – each vase is exceptional and unique. Working with a hand thrower in Stoke-on-Trent we have pushed the bounds of the thrown pot.
Positive
The concept for this collaboration with Snarkitecture was to reveal aspects of the technical process used to create fine bone china. Positive reflects the simple geometry of a cylindrical vase and plays on the fragility and solidity of fine bone china.
Potato
Conceptual artist Bruce McLean has previously created a body of work on the humble potato with a series of artworks and sculptures. Following on from the Tangerine created in 2017 for an exhibition within the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bruce has peeled two potatoes which 1882 Ltd. has in turn made into a limited edition of 100 fine bone china potato sculptures.
Prick
Embracing a punk aesthetic, Prick is a celebration of rebellion and creativity. Leah Jensen pushes boundaries with every spike and curve. Left unglazed, Prick maintains the crispness of detail and showcases a stunning depth of colour.
Stack
Stack begins a partnership between Paul Smith + 1882 Ltd. and forms part of an on-going relationship.
Stegreif
1882 Ltd. collaborates with German ceramicist, Johannes Nagel, to create the Stegreif Vases collection. Translated to ad-lib, the collection focuses on the impromptu and spontaneous character of the pieces, including their repetition.
Tangerine
Bruce McLean invented the ‘Tangerine Test,’ to assure himself that the quality of jug or painting was excellent. Simply put, if the object looked good with a tangerine, then it passed the test and was ready to display.
Tryst
Industry meets the studio maker head-on in this collaborative project between ceramicist Amy Jayne Hughes, the V&A and 1882 Ltd. Aiming to restore the humble vase to its former status as the Ultimate Accessory, the collection elevates the functional object to a design motif and a symbol of the ancient world… Amy Jayne Hughes was the V&A Ceramics Resident from April – September 2015.
Venus
Drawing – and the process of mark making as a method of recording memories – has always played a pivotal role within fashion designer and couturier Giles Deacon’s practice. Acting as an emotional conduit for displaying an idea, a thought – indeed a collective vision of worlds, dreams and consciousness – Deacon has interpreted the relationship between drawing, line and form with the techniques of figurine making, a tradition forged in the 18th century in Stoke-on-Trent, home to 1882 Ltd.
Deacon has delved deeply into the precision required to convey the finer details of character and personality when transforming multiple drawings and research into an object modelled in clay, while also how to embody each piece with a narrative piece conveyed through drawing and painting decorative motifs drawn from the natural world, historical references with a twist of paranormal, and a palette inspired by the Lake District.
