Bottle-Shaped Studio Vase by Margarete Schott

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A lovely, tri-color, bottle-form vase with a very pale pink base, rising to a dark oxblood red torso, topped with … Read more A lovely, tri-color, bottle-form vase with a very pale pink base, rising to a dark oxblood red torso, topped with bright cerulean blue on the neck and shoulders, by the distinguished West German ceramicist Margarete Schott. Schott is justly celebrated for her glaze applications, which cloak her understated forms in luminous, multi-layered colors.

MARGARETE SCHOTT (1911–2004) was born in Berlin in 1911. She began a career as a ceramicist in her late '30s, in the western-central German state of Hesse, interning at Starkenburg Keramik in Heppenheim before commencing practical training in 1947 under artist Fritz Theodor Schröder at the technical school in Darmstadt (about 30 km south of Frankfurt). Her studies continued between 1951 and 1952 at the Crowan Pottery in Cornwall, England, in collaboration with its founder Harry C. Davis (1910–1986). From 1952 through 1961, Schott served as foreman of the ceramics department back at the technical school in Darmstadt, focusing particularly on glaze effects. During this time, she passed her master's examination. Between 1961 and 1973, she taught German and English language and history at the educational institute in Jugenheim before opening a ceramic workshop of her own in Darmstadt-Eberstadt in 1962.

In 1964, Schott began participating in ceramic exhibitions in Ostend, Darmstadt, Nuremberg, and Geneva, as well as the handicraft fair in Munich and, from 1966 onward, the exhibition Internationales Handwerk in Stuttgart. In 1975, she received the Westerwaldpreis in Höhr-Grenzhausen for glaze application. In May 1993, she participated in a special exhibition at the Galerie Theis in Berlin with Gerald and Gotlind Weigel. Schott's works can be found in state, municipal, and private collections. She died in 2004.

THE LONDON GROUP — The glories of mid-century German ceramics were largely unsung on an international level before the late 1960s. The situation changed in 1968 thanks to an exhibition at Henry Rothschild’s Primavera Gallery in London that featured the work of Margarete Schott, Ursula and Karl Scheid, Beate Kuhn, and Gotlind and Gerald Weigel. The show was met with great acclaim, and following its success, the unassuming troupe of post-war German ceramists it had featured was christened THE LONDON GROUP. It was the exceptional ability of its individual members to produce distinct bodies of work while somehow eliciting a sense of collective cohesion, that made it particularly compelling. The Group was deeply influenced by one another and remained close throughout their lives. Their work provided a glimpse into a dazzling historical moment, characterized by the creative frenzy of the Post-War era that radically changed the trajectory of 20th-century ceramics. See less