Delamere/Classic Art Ware Pottery

Delamere Art Pottery and Classic Art Ware

Delamere Pottery was started by Emma (Maude) Johnson and her sons Robert and Claude, and operated from 1945 to 1960 in Leichhardt, Sydney. Emma Johnson had studied under John Castle Harris at East Sydney Technical College while her sons were away during the war, and his influence can be seen in Delamere's work.

My interest in Delamere Pottery began a number years ago with the purchase of Dorothy Johnston's definitive work "The People's Potteries: Stories of the Art Potteries of Sydney -Post WWII"

This led to me purchasing my first couple of pieces from Dorothy, both of which had been featured in her book. From then on I watched for other pieces, on ebay, at the local markets and garage sales, and at antique and collectable fairs. At the same time I bought my first piece of Classic Art Ware, a highly glazed grey koala sitting on a stump, with applied gumnuts and gumleaves. Over the ensuing months I began to notice that along with the various koala vases bearing the CAW sticker, there were also a number of Delamere pieces that also carried the same sticker.

It did not take a great leap to realise that all of these pieces bore common "signatures", in glaze colours, markings and shared design features. This prompted an active and interesting thread on the Australian ebay forums involving other collectors of these potteries, where it became apparent that these pieces were indeed all a product of the Delamere Pottery, based in Sydney. This has been since confirmed by Dorothy Johnston in 2 articles in the Collectable Trader magazine in 2010, and later confirmed by Emma's granddaughter in online discussions.