Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: Andy on August 10, 2008, 11:59:22 PM
-
Just for interest, i was watching this on ebay, I have a couple of pieces by George Elliott,(1933-1998)
and hoped this would fall into my price range, it didnt :cry:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=300247325112
I remember asking Siddy Langley if she had heard of him, she had vaguely,
Adam, did you know him? (i think Siddy thought he may have worked in London)
I wonder if he and Michael Harris knew each other, i was struck by the similarity to Mdina,
and the date of 1969 is interesting.
I cant find much about him or his work, other than he had a studio at the Bewdley museum,
somewhere near Dudley.
Andy
(sorry should look harder, just found this small piece,put link just in case of copyright)
http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1984M7
-
By '67, there were hot glass facitities at the RCA, Michael Harris left to go to Malta right at the end of '67, but Sam Herman had taken over as tutor at the RCA.
The Glasshouse was founded in '69, I've got the catalogue from the recent exhibition, (The Glasshouse and it's Tree) and there is no mention of George Elliot, so if London, quite possibly at the RCA?
-
Thanks Sue,
it says from link above,
'He had a glass workshop at Bewdley Museum, and ran travelling glass workshops around the country.'
So i expect there was inspiration from all over, shared amongst his contemporaries,maybe he met
many others on his travels?
my pieces are not Mdina ish at all :D
Andy
-
Rather lovely!
I don't know how many hot glass facilities there were around the uk around '67 - I thought it wasn't that many, really, because it was Sam Herman's visit over here, in '67 when he and Michael Harris and somebody else who never gets credited and I've forgotten his name :-[ :-[ :-[ set up the first kilns at the RCA.
Before Dominic Labino altered the chemical composition of the glass that is melted, it was impossible to do it in small kilns - really, the whole Studio Glass Movement was only just starting then.
I know noooooothing about Bewley museum.
I was slightly thinking the piece you showed on ebay was a little like some of the work done at the RCA, at that time - which is where you probably get the Mdina-ishness of Michael Harris - I'm personally rather interested in early Glasshouse and RCA pieces, I have a small number - none by Michael Harris, sadly. Still kicking myself for missing one on ebay about 5 years ago, didn't quite understand it's significance at the time. :-[
-
Thanks Sue,
it appears Bewdley museum is just a small town museum with local and old crafts etc.
Maybe some of our Stourbridge and Brummie friends have been there?
It looks a nice old town ;D
Regards
Andy
-
Interesting pieces.
The museum still has artisans demonstrating old and ancient crafts in the Butchers Shambles section but I imagine that he used the old Brass Foundry there which had fallen into disuse. The Museum opened in 1972.
The could try the local newspapers for more info on him The Shuttle & the Express & Star.
Dudley and Stourbridge are about 20 miles away.
Pete
-
Thanks Pete,
:D
-
Pleased to see 2 pics in the new Charles Hajdamach book :thup:
George Elliott in his studios in the 1970s, and a lovely pic of 5 pieces of his work.
page418
;D ;D ;D
-
Hi Andy,
Some info for you. Hope this helps - Regards, Greg
GEORGE ELLIOT 1934 - 98
George Elliot was a student at Stourbridge in the 1950s. After his National Service in the Navy he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art and travelled on a bursary to Scandinavia. On graduation he joined Stevens and Williams as a designer, moving to Stourbridge College as a tutor in the early 1960s. There was still a strict demarcation between design and glassmaking, and George did not start to make his own glass until the small furnaces, developed by Harvey Littleton and Dominic Labino in Wisconsin were brought to Britain by San Herman. George soon transferred his energies to mastering the craft of freeblown glass, working on his own without the benefit of the traditional team.
This meant that he had to develop unique ways of carrying out procedures, like casting on a foot to a wine glass. Georges forms were, like him, honest, unpretentious, and quintessentially English. He, unlike many others, chose to devote his creative energies on the production of decorative domestic items, working at his studio in Bewdley, and after leaving teaching in the mid eighties, at his 15th century timber frame cottage in Herefordshire.
Although his formal repertoire was, on the face of it, traditional, he imbued his forms, whether vases, goblets or bottles with distinctive character, both in shape and decoration. He specialised in applied, linear decoration which was hooked into festoons round the forms, and added “splashed” applications of coloured shards onto clear and coloured backgrounds. His choice of the traditional was expressive of George as a person; he was, for example an expert with the English Long Bow, which he would make from scratch. His exact copies of Medieval glasses were much in demand from collectors and Museums.
He was very much a pioneer of the British Studio Glass movement and generations of students owe him a great debt. His works, which are quietly unique have a strong sense of identity, and are rare in the sense that they both maintain a sense of tradition, and yet bring that tradition into a contemporary context.
-
Thanks Greg,
thats really interesting :thup:
(where is it from?)
Cheers
Andy
-
Hi Andy,
Just a few thoughts of the top of my head. ;)
Only kidding! - theres a website link below for you, strangely enough I was looking at this website and George Elliot in general the other week. If you have any problems just let me know.
http://www.glass-routes.com/index.html
Some other additional info below for you: G. Elliot :)
He set up one of the first glass studios in the country and taught many of the now leading UK artists at Stourbridge College from 1966-1981. He also worked as a designer for Holmegaards Glassveark in Denmark and for Hadelands Glassveark in Norway. George travelled round the UK with a mobile glass furnace demonstrating the art of glass blowing at various workshops and symposia.
Sadly he died in 2000.
I have a number of RCA pieces of glass if you ever want me to email you some pics.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Greg
-
I'd be incredibly interested in seeing any RCA or other early Glasshouse pieces!
I have a small collection myself, will get some images together shortly.
-
Thanks again Greg,
Sue, you must have so much glass :o Do you live in an enormous castle ;D
Never get tired of seeing more pretty pictures
Andy
-
:-[
I do know of folk who have much more glass and live in much smaller places.. I have been seriously collecting glass since ~ '98, but owing to shortage of space (and Michael's levels of tolerance) have curtailed my excesses for a good while now. I don't really have holidays of any description, all my clothes are charity shop - glass is my one extravagance.
but it is sort of everywhere.... and I suppose the house is fairly big.
no George Elliot though....yet >:D
-
Sue,
ive totally run out of shelf space, which in a way is good , because one can afford to be a bit
more selective. I havent sold any for 6 months, but i plan to have a large selling spree in the
new year. i started looking at shirts in the charity shops this year while looking for glass,
and now i have a designer wardrobe full of good stuff, nothing wrong with that, although i cant help
telling people, so when i go in the pub in a new Hugo Boss shirt , everyone knows where ive been ::)
Cheers
Andy
:thup:
-
When you run out of shelf space, there's still the tops of your kitchen cupboards, the top of the loo cistern, the windowframes, the corners of rooms and the turns in the staircase, the top of the bathroom cabinets, give your unwanted books to the charity shops and use the bookshelves, take the doors off the linen cupboards in the rooms (if you're in an old house) and use them......
And you can be trebly smug about charity shop clothes - saving cash, giving to charity and recycling! (what's "hugo boss" anyway? :spls: :P )
-
Good advice! :24: (Hugo Boss ,just some designer,no idea where from! forgot to add 'shirt')
8)
-
;D
Just pretending to be ignorant, honest! (In my day "designer" meant quality, not something with an advertising logo on it. If I'm going to advertise something I expect to be paid, not to have to fork out for the very dubious priveledge.)
I've stuck some more pics in the faceted cobalt inside-out thread.