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Susan Williams-Ellis (6 June 1918 – 26 November 2007) was a British pottery designer, who was best known for co-founding
Portmeirion Pottery Portmeirion is a British pottery company based in Stoke-on-Trent, England. History Portmeirion Pottery began in 1960 when pottery designer Susan Williams-Ellis (daughter of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who created the Italian-style Portmeirion Vi ...
. She was the eldest daughter of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis.


Background

Williams-Ellis was born in
Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...
, Surrey, England, in the house of artist and critic Roger Fry. Her father, Sir Clough, was an eminent architect; Williams-Ellis' mother was writer Amabel Strachey, cousin of author and Bloomsbury figure
Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of '' Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...
. Her parents were friends of other members of the
Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton St ...
, including
Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarge ...
and
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born ...
. Williams-Ellis' godfather was
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)'' The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...
. She was determined to be an artist from an early age. In the 1930s, Susan studied ceramics with
Bernard Bernard ('' Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''bern'' "bear" and ''hard'' "bra ...
and
David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
Leach while she was at Dartington Hall School. At
Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...
, during the 1940s, her tutors included
Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking ...
for painting and
Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Mo ...
for sculpture, who helped to develop Susan's innate feeling for three-dimensional shape and form.


Career

Williams-Ellis studied Fine Art at
Chelsea Polytechnic Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...
, where her tutors included Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland. In 1948, Susan and her husband Euan moved to
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
, following their marriage in 1945, and became self-sufficient. She earned some money from book illustration and design work, while Euan produced a pamphlet, ''Towards Equality'', for the Fabian Society. However, the lure of Clough's architectural vision was strong. In 1953, the management of the souvenir shop in the Welsh village of
Portmeirion Portmeirion is a tourist village in Gwynedd, North Wales. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village, and is now owned by a charitable trust. The village is located in the co ...
, created by Susan's father, fell to Susan and Euan. Despite the unique architectural status of the village, the shop was operating at a loss. By 1961, the shop had grown enormously; Susan and Euan were managers of the village; and a second Portmeirion shop had opened in one of London's smartest shopping areas,
Pont Street Pont Street is a fashionable street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, traversing the areas of Knightsbridge and Belgravia. The street is not far from the Knightsbridge department store Harrods to its north-west. The street ...
. Working on Sir Clough's principle that "good design is good business", the couple transformed two broken-down potteries in
Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...
into one of the country's most affluent pottery companies,
Portmeirion Pottery Portmeirion is a British pottery company based in Stoke-on-Trent, England. History Portmeirion Pottery began in 1960 when pottery designer Susan Williams-Ellis (daughter of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who created the Italian-style Portmeirion Vi ...
. In an era when the idea of the "working woman" was an anathema, the entrepreneurial success of Susan Williams-Ellis, as a designer and a businesswoman (as well as wife and mother), was unusual. Portmeirion was one of the first retail companies to fully understand and exploit the "lifestyle" consumer, creating a wide range of products including casual tableware, housewares and gifts for both women and men. The 1970s saw the birth of what is considered by many to be signature range of Portmeirion: Botanic Garden. It was based on illustration plates discovered by Susan in an antique natural history book she found at an antiquarian bookseller's in London: Weldon & Wesley. Susan was looking for eighteenth-century engravings of sea creatures to use in a pottery decoration. She bought some French encyclopaedias and, as she was leaving, the bookseller showed her a brightly hand-coloured 'herbal' book of 1817, illustrated with a large selection of plants and flowers. The book, by Thomas Green, was called ''The Universal -or -Botanical, Medical and Agricultural Dictionary''. Botanic Garden has proven to be the company's most successful range of tableware, despite buyers' reluctance at the beginning. Susan Williams-Ellis recounted:
I remember when we first launched Botanic Garden. At that time you might have had dessert sets which had different patterns on each plate, but for the traditional tableware setting, everything had to match. I thought "Why can't we have different patterns all within one collection? So, I created Botanic Garden!" The department store buyers in 1972 said that no-one would stock it as there were too many designs and that no-one would want to buy it as it didn't match. I think I proved them all wrong!
Even in her eighties, Williams-Ellis' desire to continue to design the best tableware and ceramics led her to keep closely involved with the latest generation of Portmeirion designs, introducing Portmeirion to new audiences all over the world. Until 2006, she was still travelling the world, finding inspiration from ancient civilisations and underwater worlds for her art work. Susan created a large number of paintings and pastel drawings of tropical fish during her lifetime. An avid scuba-diver, she devised a technique of sketching fish and corals from life under the water by using tracing paper and marking crayons. She would paint the final works when back in her studio. They are in the coffee-table art book ''Magic Gardens'' and can be seen in Susan's granddaughter, Rose Fulbright-Vickers', print design for the Tropical collection. In 2005, she received an honorary fellowship from the Rector of London's University of Arts, Sir Michael Bichard, and University Registrar, Susan Asser. Susan Williams-Ellis said:
I was very flattered when I found out that I was to receive an honorary fellowship from University of Arts, London, and even more so when the Rector agreed to come all the way to see me at Portmeirion in North Wales to re-create the ceremony that will be held in my absence in London later this month. I decided to pursue pottery, rather than painting, mainly because I wanted to create affordable and beautiful things. I wanted people to buy my work purely because they liked it, and that it had a function, rather than buying things just as an investment, so its ironic I suppose that my work from the 60s is now considered so "collectable" I am frightfully lucky. When I went to Chelsea before the War, I studied under the sculptor Henry Moore and the painter Graham Sutherland. Twice a week I would be in a class with these icons of modern British art – what a wonderful chance to have, and now I am being given an honorary fellowship from University of Arts, London of which Chelsea forms part, its all come rather full circle hasn’t it? Being in Stoke has also been a wonderful part of my life. The people of Stoke are really the nicest people one could ever meet, and their hard work has established Portmeirion and enabled us to sell our pots around the world. I have been very fortunate.


Personal life

On 13 March 1944, her brother, Christopher (1923–1944), fell in action before
Monte Cassino Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley, Italy, west of Cassino and at an elevation of . Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is widely known for its abbey, the first ho ...
as a lieutenant in the
Welsh Guards The Welsh Guards (WG; cy, Gwarchodlu Cymreig), part of the Guards Division, is one of the Foot Guards regiments of the British Army. It was founded in 1915 as a single-battalion regiment, during the First World War, by Royal Warrant of George V. ...
.Lieutenant Christopher Moelwyn Strachey Williams-Ellis
13 March 1944,
Welsh Guards The Welsh Guards (WG; cy, Gwarchodlu Cymreig), part of the Guards Division, is one of the Foot Guards regiments of the British Army. It was founded in 1915 as a single-battalion regiment, during the First World War, by Royal Warrant of George V. ...
, Minturno War Cemetery, VIII, C, 24., Italy. He had joined up straight from
King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...
. His friend at Cambridge was Euan Cooper-Willis, who later married Susan. The couple had four children: daughters Anwyl, Siân, and Menna Angharad; and son Robin Llywelyn. Anwyl and Menna are artists who had a close involvement with Portmeirion Pottery; Siân is a peace activist; Robin is a
Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it h ...
author. Her father wrote in his autobiography, ''Architect Errant'', about his feelings:
His lough's son Christopher'sroommate in the Gibbs building there, Euan Cooper-Willis, subsequently married our elder daughter Susan. The armistice was thus a time of both pleasure and of almost unbearable pain. We soon had grandchildren to add to the pleasure. We decided that since we, Christopher's parents, were alive, we should try to be so properly, and to keep the wound to ourselves.


Death

Susan Williams-Ellis died on 26 November 2007 in her sleep, aged 89.


References


External links


Portmeirion Pottery company website

Portmeirion Village: article on pottery

Obituary in ''The Times'', 10 December 2007

Radio 4 Woman's Hour Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams-Ellis, Susan 1918 births 2007 deaths Dinnerware designers English potters People from Stoke-on-Trent People from Guildford People educated at Dartington Hall School Women potters 20th-century ceramists British women ceramicists 20th-century English businesspeople