Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns is a familiar name in America – he is one of the most important American artists, along with names like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. In fact, the New York Times has named him the ‘foremost living artist’ of the United States.  He has also been awarded numerous times, including getting the Presidential medal from Barack Obama. Now that is no small honor!

Like the painting above, Johns’ work focuses on familiar objects, ‘things the mind already knows. As a result, a lot of his work features letters of the alphabet, numbers, primary colors, and patriotic symbols like the American flag and maps.

The subjects of his paintings may seem simple but these seemingly ‘simple’ subjects are no less than precious gems – Jasper Johns is considered the 30th most valuable artist in the world! Apparently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York paid a whopping $20 million for his painting titled ‘The White Flag’!

Clarice Cliff

Clarice Cliff was an English pottery designer and ceramic artist. She is best known for her 1930s Art Deco pottery patterns.

Clarice Cliff was born in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, England in 1899. Her father was a worker in an iron foundry and her mother looked after the family’s seven children and did washing for people to bring in some extra money. Clarice Cliff went to a different school than her six siblings. At the end of the school day, she used to visit her aunt, a painter at a pottery company. Clarice Cliff started working in the pottery industry at the age of just 13. She began as a gilder (adding gold lines to pottery designs) and then became a freehand pottery painter.

She died in October 1972 at Chetwynd House. She was 73 years old.

There are many collectors of Clarice Cliff pottery, and rare combinations of patterns and shapes can fetch a lot of money. For example, a wall plaque decorated in the May Avenue pattern sold at auction for just under £40,000. Her work was included in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s New Ceramics Gallery.

Clarice Cliff has been described as being ‘one of the UK’s most prolific and important ceramicists’ and ‘one of the key names of the Art Deco movement’.