Watts Cemetery Chapel - Exterior Frieze - geograph

The Compton Potters' Arts Guild was an

art pottery Art pottery is a term for pottery with artistic aspirations, made in relatively small quantities, mostly between about 1870 and 1930. Typically, sets of the usual tableware items are excluded from the term; instead the objects produced are mostly ...

, founded by and based at the

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

home of

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

artist,

Mary Fraser Tytler Mary Seton Fraser Tytler (married name Mary Seton Watts) (25 November 1849 – 6 September 1938) was a symbolist craftswoman, designer and social reformer. Biography Watts, née Fraser-Tytler, was born on 25 November 1849, in India. She was the ...

Background

A follower of the Home Arts and Industries Association, set up by Earl Brownlow in 1885 to encourage handicrafts among the lower classes, Fraser-Tytler, the wife of

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

painter and sculptor

George Frederic Watts George Frederic Watts (23 February 1817 – 1 July 1904) was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolism (arts), Symbolist movement. Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as ''Hope (Watts), Hop ...

, had offered to design and build a new mortuary chapel when the council in Compton, Surrey were developing a new

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

. Setting up a local

evening class A part-time student is a non-traditional student who pursues higher education, but will attend fewer class hours per semester than a full-time student, taking more years to complete their qualification; this is typically done after reaching adul ...

, led by

Louis Deuchars Louis Reid Deuchars (1870–1927) was a Scottish artist and sculptor. Life He was born on 12 April 1870 in Comrie, Perth and Kinross, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland. He attended Glasgow School of Art from 1887 to 1888. During his time in the ...

, Mary got them designing and modelling designs guided by her and influenced by friends and crafts people:

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August 183317 June 1898) was an English painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter. Burne-Jones worked with William Morris as a founding part ...

Walter Crane Walter Crane (15 August 184514 March 1915) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Ka ...

, Alexander Fisher,

William De Morgan William Frend De Morgan (16 November 1839 – 15 January 1917) was an English potter, tile designer and novelist. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tile ...

and Phoebe Traquair. The resultant Romanesque/

Celtic revival The Celtic Revival (also referred to as the Celtic Twilight) is a variety of movements and trends in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries that see a renewed interest in aspects of Celtic culture. Artists and writers drew on the traditions of Gae ...

exterior of the

Watts Mortuary Chapel The Watts Cemetery Chapel or Watts Mortuary Chapel is a chapel in a Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) version of Celtic Revival in the village cemetery of Compton in Surrey. The designer was Mary Fraser-Tytler, an artist resident in the ...

aroused such interest, that before work on the

polychrome Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery, or sculpture in multiple colors. When looking at artworks and ...

interior had started, Watts had set up permanent Arts and Crafts communities in both Compton and her home-town of Aldourie,

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. The outputs of the Compton group resulted in the formation in 1899 of the Compton Potters' Arts Guild.

Production

The innovative terracotta garden ornaments produced by the evening class group, recommended by

Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British Horticulture, horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United Sta ...

, expanded into a production centre of mainly

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

and latterly

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

style pottery, with many of its designs involved Celtic knots. The pottery's output was extensive, from large

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

pottery to smaller household figures, jugs, plaques and pendants. In Green Lane cemetery,

Farnham Farnham is a market town and civil parish in Surrey, England, around southwest of London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, close to the county border with Hampshire. The town is on the north branch of the River Wey, a tributary of the ...

, there is a Compton Pottery

memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

to May Margaret Barber, widow of Charles Burton Barber, the Victorian artist. After

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, many pairs of bookends were made including Archers, Sunburst, Galleon, Fruit and Flowers. The majority of the pottery was made from a soft white body and decorated with

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. ''Tempera'' also refers to the paintings done in ...

, an

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

-based paint susceptible to wear and which washes off. Its designs and products were featured by many

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

shops, including Liberty & Co. One of its potters was featured in the first

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

filler intermission film, the well known 'Potter's Wheel'. After the death of its founder, the Guild continued until 1954, by which time competition from more modern designs had severely reduced its sales.

References

{{reflist English pottery Guildford Organisations based in Surrey Arts and Crafts movement Art Nouveau Art pottery