Page 236 - Constructing Craft

Dish decorated by Pam Nalder, Martin Boyd Pottery, c. 1955. Note the use
of Aboriginal motifs in the decoration. Similar use of Maori motif was a
feature of both mass-produced pottery and studio pottery in New Zealand.
Photo: Geoff Friend.

Frank Carpay, a Dutch immigrant who had spent time with Picasso in Europe, was
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employed in 1953 to produce a line of hand-decorated pottery for Crown Lynn.
However, despite strenuous attempts by Tom Clark, the general manager of Crown
Lynn, to promote Carpay’s work, which Clark, in an attempt to locate the pottery in a

framework that New Zealanders would understand, labelled ‘fine china’, the pottery
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did not sell well. The differences in population size and composition between
Australia and New Zealand may have produced commercial success in the former

and failure in the latter, however, issues relating to design also had an influence.
Besides having a much larger population, Australia’s immigration policies had

encouraged a more diverse range of European nationalities to immigrate in the
1950s, creating a market that was more open to the new designs that Modernism

was fostering in Europe. Furthermore, the Martin Boyd pottery sometimes called on
images of Australia for the decoration of their pieces whereas Carpay remained

committed to the more abstract decorations he had learned in Europe. New

Constructing Craft