VINTAGE CHILDREN'S TABLEWARE FROM NORWAY

Some of my favourite pottery pieces come from the Norwegian pottery factories Figgjo Flint and Stavangerflint. They were both founded in the forties, their prime being the fifties and sixties. The two rival firms were merged in 1968 and renamed as Figgjo AS. The company is still running today, though, their style is now more simplified and serious, and very different from the style of the earlier days which heavily emphasized colourful, playful decorations.

Most of the pottery pieces I have managed to collect from Stavangerflint and Figgjo Flint are filled with whimsical, quirky characters and plants which catch the eye of my little daughter as well as mine. The two companies also had some tableware especially designed for children. Over the years I have managed to collect a few for my daughter. These pieces are all finds from charity shops and flea markets. Most of them by my dear mother in Finland.

The design on the cup pictured on the top is by Gro Pedersen Claussen for Stavangerflint. She worked for the factory from 1963 to 1967, after which she continued as a freelancer until 1975. She designed two ranges of children's tableware: To barn med sau (Two children with sheep) and Venner (Friends), from which the pictured cup is from. The set also includes a plate and a bowl. They are pretty hard to find these days and very few come to auction on eBay. I really love the style of the illustration as it reminds me of the illustrator Ingrid Vang-Nyman's work on Astrid Lindgren's children's books, which were my all time favourites as a child.

The other cup is from Figgjo Flint and shows a little child fishing. I haven't managed to find any information about the cup's designer or age, but I would assume it dates to mid fifties.

The bowl on the top picture was designed by Inger Waage who was the most prominent designer for Stavangerflint. She designed three different children's tableware sets about road safety (Trygg trafikk) and this particular plate belongs to the last one dating back to the late sixties when Figgjo Flint and Stavangerflint were merged and the bowl has both companies backstamps.

The other bowl, with a little boy and a girl with a blue car, is by Turi Gramstad Oliver who became the most celebrated designer at Figgjo Flint where she started working circa 1960. Previously she had worked for Stavangerflint while still studying. The bowl has a Stavangerflint backstamp and her signature text, "turi design". The design dates most likely back to the fifties while she was still a student.

These plates, pictured above, are from Figgjo Flint but I have been unable to trace the designer. From the style of the backstamp I can tell they are from the early fifties and therefore I can assume that they are not designed by Turi Gramstad Oliver, as she wasn't working at the factory until 1960. Anyhow, the plates are absolutely gorgeous and still in perfect condition despite being 60 years old.

HORNSEA POTTERY

When I first encountered pieces of Hornsea Pottery 6 years ago, it wasn't exactly love at first sight. I thought it had potential, but that it was also ever-so-slightly "stuffy" and "naff". I don't really know what exactly ignited the love and admiration I feel towards it these days, but certainly part of the blame goes to Hornsea Love mugs.

Hornsea Pottery was founded in 1949 and its most influential designer was John Clappison (1937-2013),
who designed various contemporary motifs. The Love Mugs (pictured below), however, are designed by Kenneth Townsend (1931-1999). They are a set of 12 mugs, each representing one month of the year. The illustration is different on each. My three favourites are the February mug with a couple eating heart-shaped crepes, the July mug with a sun-bathing couple (the lady seems to have a fishtail, The Little Mermaid perhaps) and the January mug with a couple ice-skating with a snowman.

The mugs were produced from the mid-seventies to the start of the eighties. If you are considering collecting these mugs, then it is also useful to know that they come with two different shape of handles, a round and a rectangular one. Mine have round handles. A nice detail is that the inside of the mugs have a white glazing which lightens up the brown. My dear spouse doesn't quite share my enthusiasm for Hornsea pottery but at least he leaves me to it. For him the "murky" brown is still too dreary. But quite a few years now I have really come to appreciate the beauty of pottery and glass design of the seventies with all its heavy shapes and dark colours. I am not alone in this: Orla Kiely has been influenced by Hornsea's motifs and shapes in her pottery range, and I can also notice some likeness with Finnish illustrator Sanna Annukka's work. Just look at the Christmas trees on the December mug (see the picture on the top).

Another example from Finnish pottery are the wall plaques illustrating Kalevala, a Finnish national epic (pictured above). These wall plaques were manufactured by Arabia from 1976 to 1999. When I was a child, I thought them to be the most hideous things and couldn't possibly understand why someone would want to display them on the wall. But a few years ago I suddenly started seeing some beauty in them. The colours are so deep, and the illustration, designed by Raija Uosikkinen, is so lovely. I really have had to keep myself not to start collecting them (there are about 25 of them and only so much space on my walls). On my last visit to Finland, however, I did purchase this particular one from a flea market. The price was reasonable, the condition like new and the seller a nice lady who by chance used to live in the UK.

Pictured above are the Miranda bowls from Finnish Nuutajärvi. They were designed by Heikki Orvola in the seventies. These days the prices of these bowls are quite high and I wish I would have found them a bit earlier like my friend Annika from Vihreä talo who introduced them to me. I just absolutely adore the pattern on them and they come in several colours: clear, emerald green, turquoise, and the brown of course.