Records date back to 1720 for a small glassworks off London's
Fleet Street, but Britain's longest running glass house, best known
as the Whitefriars factory, really came into its own when James
Powell purchased the business for his three sons in 1834.
It was under the aegis of the Powell family that Whitefriars led
fashion and technology in the manufacture of domestic decorative
and table glass for a century and a half.
Largely forgotten in the years following its closure in 1980, in
more recent times Whitefriars has enjoyed a vibrant collecting
revival as collectors, dealers and the museum community reassess a
broad spectrum of high quality, handmade glass that epitomise
design movements from the Arts and Crafts to the Swinging
Sixties.
Stained glass windows, made to satisfy the Victorian church
building boom, accounted for a large portion of production and
profit during the early part of the James Powell & Sons
period.
It was not until the second half of the century, when the family
began their close association with leading designers at the
forefront of the Arts & Crafts movement (specifically the
architect Philip Webb who designed a range of glass vessels for
William Morris at the Red House) that the factory began its
trademark range of domestic tableware inspired by historical
glass.
Largely eschewing the standard heavily cut wares (John Ruskin, a
close associate of the factory pronounced that "all cut glass is
barbarous"), these early wares in the manner of Venetian and
Roman glass are characterised by their relative plainness and the
use of a range of ancient decorative techniques such as threading,
trailing, tears and the application of prunts.
Whitefriars' rise to cutting edge status was accompanied by the
arrival in 1875 of Harry James Powell (grandson of the founder). An
Oxford graduate, his scientific approach to glass making occasioned
innovations in both colouring and decoration (opalescent glass
moved the company to new heights of late Victorian fashion) and in
heat resistant glass for scientific purposes.
Above: James Powell ovoid vase designed by James Hogan in
sea green glass with blue ribbon trailed decoration, c.1934-40. It
sold at Mellors & Kirk, Nottingham in November 2009 for
£420.
The factory's designs, now shown at major exhibitions around the
world, moved with fashion. Whitefriars was the glass maker of
choice for Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau proponents such as
W.A.S. Benson and Charles R. Ashbee, while the inter-War
period and a move to a new state of the art factory in Wealdstone,
West London in 1923 occasioned a series of colourful Art Deco wares
enlivened by geometric wheel engraving.
But perhaps the most iconic Whitefriars productions emerged in
the 1960s as the firm (officially named Whitefriars Glass in 1963)
battled to return to its pre-War prosperity. Designer Geoffrey
Baxter had joined the factory in 1954 directly from the Royal
School of Art. His approach to glassmaking was sometimes radical
(he famously used nails, wire and bark to create his prototype
moulds) but it was perfectly in tune with the mood of the late
1960s. The Textured range with its distinctive shapes such as the
Drunken Bricklayer and Banjo, was released in a range of three
colours in 1967. To cinnamon, indigo, and willow were added meadow
green, kingfisher blue and vibrant tangerine by 1969. These were
daring designs but the production method was quite traditional:
Whitefriars glass was always hand-blown, in this case into a series
of cast iron moulds.
The factory hit hard times during the next decade following the
loss of industrial contracts and the lack of demand for stained
glass. Whitefriars continued to make Textured domestic glass,
notably the new Glacier range of 1972 and a series of millefiori
paperweights, but the end came in 1980. The trademark Whitefriars
is now owned by the Scottish glass maker Caithness.
The records and contents of the factory museum were given to the
Museum of London.
Although largely forgotten in the decades following its closure
in 1980, since the 1990s glass by James Powell & Sons has
undergone a serious academic and market reappraisal. This not only
includes the extremely collectable earlier pieces - as important in
the context of the Arts and Crafts market as a De Morgan vase or a
Morris textile - but also the later Textured wares that made an
important contribution to late 1960s design. Pieces from outside
these aesthetic high water marks can be more affordable.
A good piece of facon de Venise Whitefriars can bring prices in
the high hundreds, while there are plenty of buyers for the
vaseline glass shades and vases that characterise the Harry Powell
era.
Clear glass tableware from the late 19th and early
20th centuries can be surprising affordable, but if they
are combined with metalwork designed by Archibald Knox, Omar
Ramsden, Benson or Ashbee they become infinitely more
desirable.
Wares from the inter-War period are perhaps undervalued although
books based around the archive in the Museum of London and online
articles on the subject have helped define the collecting range and
make watertight attributions. With the exception of the
experimental Studio range from the late 1960s, Whitefriars is
rarely signed.
The great explosion in the market has been for the Geoffrey
Baxter wares.
By the time Geoffrey Baxter died in 1995 his contribution to the
Whitefriars story had already assumed cult status and a collecting
hierarchy had developed.
Some shapes are more appealing, some colours are more difficult
to find and some 'casts' noticeably better than others. Given that
the moulds were used for many years (and slowly became worn) it is
possible to date a piece of Textured Whitefriars by the degree of
definition.
Once the stuff of fleamarkets and eBay (where so much post-War
Whitefriars is traded), since 2000 there has been a succession of
ever-greater auction prices for Baxter forms, peaking around 2005
when a large Banjo vase in Tangerine would cost £500 or more, and a
more unusual colour such as Kingfisher Blue or Meadow Green closer
to £1500. The smaller pieces, in modish forms such as Cello, Aztec,
Sunburst, Concentric TV and Guitar, were all trading at new levels
from £100-plus.
Today, in what remains a primarily home-based market with little
input from art glass buyers in North America and Japan, prices are
a good deal lower. Small textured wares begin at around £30 with
most large pieces in standard colours trading at auction for
£300-600.
Doubtless there is a parallel to be drawn here with the market
for another 1960s classic, that of Troika pottery, that has
followed much the same curve.
It is also important to be aware of the large number of Baxter
fakes (specifically a rash of Drunken Bricklayer copies) that
appeared alongside rising prices.
Seemingly machine made, these initially convincing copies are
heavier, the colours subtly different and they lack a polished
pontil mark to the base that is a general characteristic of
Whitefriars' hand-blown glass.
Whitefriars Glass, The Art of James Powell & Sons
(ed. Lesley Jackson). ISBN-13: 978-0903685405
James Powell and Sons: Glassmakers of Whitefriars
1834-1980 by Wendy Evans, Catherine Ross, Alex Werner.
ISBN-13: 978-0904818567
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