NEW YORK – Starting in the 1970s, post-modern studio artists, experimenting with cutting-edge techniques and materials, made unique, conceptual teapot designs like nothing else seen before. Though they draw upon the familiar handle-body-spout form, most of these daring studio teapots are not recommended for actual use; they are fun rather than functional.
Anne Hirondelle (b. 1944-), a nationally known ceramic artist raised in Salem, Oregon, was initially inspired by simple, traditional design but eventually embraced more ornamental and sculptural vessels. In May 2020, an attractive Hirondelle teapot on a matching stand, adorned with her signature high-fired blue soda ash glaze, brought $850 plus the buyer’s premium at MBA Seattle Auction.
Though Irina Zaytcev (Russian, b. 1957-), who holds advanced degrees in book illustration, favors classic teapot forms, she patterns their smooth porcelain surfaces with bursts of bright, water-based, highly glazed naive designs. Hand rolling, sculpting and artful appliques add to their charm. A delightful wide-eyed Zaytcev teapot earned $500 plus the buyer’s premium at Treadway in June 2020.
The Ardmore Ceramic Studio, established on a farm in the Kwazulu-Natal province of South Africa in 1985, produces handmade, one-of-a-kind teapots through artistic collaboration: one craftsperson throws the pots, another paints them, and a third glazes them. Like the creatively lidded, wildly embellished Zebra-Orchid confection that realized $400 plus the buyer’s premium at MiddleManBrokers Inc. in September 2021, each of its studio teapots depicts alluring aspects of pastoral South African life.
Harris Deller (American, b. 1947-), whose work delves into dramatic design contradictions and complexities, fashions teapots with white porcelain composites enhanced by narrow graphics, crosshatchings and incisions. He often alters their volumes by penetrating their interiors with their handles or compressing their sides. In October 2022, Selkirk Auctioneers & Appraisers offered a sandblasted, ivory-tone porcelain Deller pot featuring an eye-like neck, a triangular lid and a rounded body graced with a contrasting sculptural handle and spout. It attained $425 plus the buyer’s premium.
In addition to creating arrays of brightly colored toys, furniture and public sculptures, Peter Shire (American, b. 1947-) turns teapots upside down to great effect. To achieve his fanatstical designs, he reportedly tosses handfuls of ceramic geometric components into the air and studies how they fall, turning them into witty, topsy-turvy teapot whimsies. An example dubbed Earthly Stripes, which crowns plump ceramics and sleek metal planes with citrus-like bubbles, sold at Treadway Toomey Auctions for $3,500 plus the buyer’s premium in November 2017.
Richard Marquis (b. 1945-), a pioneer of contemporary American glass art, is famed for his fine forms, exuberant use of color and flawless hot work techniques that he learned at the Venini Factory in Murano, Italy. In January 2015, Habatat Galleries auctioned an entry from his highly acclaimed Tea Pot series. Called Flattened Teapot, it was hot constructed with murrini – multicolor glass chips fused into rods, which are embedded in blown glass and then twisted into hypnotic spiraling patterns. The piece realized $15,000 plus the buyer’s premium.
Annette Corcoran (American, b. 1930-), a passionate horticulturist and ornithologist, forms and embellishes non-functional teapots depicting lifelike, brilliantly hued birds in their natural habitats. To capture their characteristic movements and also to transcend the technical challenges of clay, Corcoran initially wheel-throws and hand-sculpts each component individually and then fires it separately. Through a remarkably complex process, she then glosses each piece with a series of subdued underglazes and bright overglazes, firing them at low temperature between applications. After achieving the vivid, jewel-like hues she seeks, she finishes her teapots with matte glaze, firing them at high heat. Heritage Auctions sold an exquisite Corcoran painted porcelain Piping Plover teapot for $1,200 plus the buyer’s premium in July 2021.
Trailblazing 20th-century studio teapots, which blur the boundaries between function, fine art and craft, enhance any setting, even if they can’t actually serve tea. They continue to charm interior decorators, dealers and collectors alike.
