1. Kingston School of Art and the Knox Guild

2. The Oxshott Pottery at Potter's Croft

3. Textile designs

4. Later career

5. References

6. External links

Denise Wren, nee Tuckfield (1891–1979) was one of the first female studio potters in Britain. She set up the Oxshott Pottery in the village of Oxshott, Surrey, in 1920.

Wren was born in Lake View, Albany, Western Australia on 7 January, 1891.^[1]

Her family moved to East Molesey, Surrey, England in 1900.

Kingston School of Art and the Knox Guild

From 1907–1912 Wren attended Kingston School of Art where she studied under Art Nouveau designer Archibald Knox. Here, she learned to throw pots on the wheel from Mr. Mercer, an employee at the local Norbiton Potteries and Brickworks. He also fired her ceramics in his kiln, including a tile with a flying fish motif featured in the September 1908 issue of fine and decorative arts magazine The Studio.

In 1912, following criticism of his teaching methods, Archibald Knox quit Kingston School of Art.^[2] Together with other students from their design class, sisters Denise and Winifred Tuckfield quit Kingston School of Art to found the Knox Guild of Design and Craft. They rented premises at 24A Market Place, Kingston. The Knox Guild exhibited in Kingston Museum Art Gallery in 1914, then annually from 1919 until 1935, and at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London in 1921, 1923 and 1925.

Other members of the Knox Guild included the organisation's President Edmund Holding, a tailor by trade and a member of the Royal Watercolour Society. His wife May Holding was also a founding member. She made hand spun, hand woven, vegetable dyed furnishings for their home, and orange curtains for the Wrens’ home Potter's Croft. She wrote the book Notes on Spinning and Dyeing Wool published in 1922. Maudie E. Bishop was a stained glass craftworker. She made decorative glass panels for Potter's Croft. In 1947, she was commissioned to make a stained glass window for Surbiton Hill Methodist Church. Located above the sanctuary, it commemorates Mayor of Surbiton Herbert Samuel Durbin. Annie Begg wrote Raffia and Mabel Roffey wrote Simple Basketry For Homes and Schools, both published by Pitman in 1930. Mabel Pope made silver jewellery decorated with semi-precious stones and Molly Walters designed tiles and textiles.

The Oxshott Pottery at Potter's Croft

In 1915, Denise Tuckfield married Henry Wren. The Wrens built their own house to Denise's design, Potter's Croft, a live/ work space at Oxshott in Surrey. Here, they set up the Oxshott Pottery which produced brightly glazed functional earthenware products such as bowls, dishes and vases which they sold at agricultural and horticultural shows during the interwar period. They taught short courses and wrote books on pottery ^[3][4] Denise pioneered designs for small scale kilns, which she sold by mail order to aspiring amateur potters, both in the UK and abroad.

At this time in the UK, pottery production was a large scale industry and pottery was not taught in art schools. However, in 1920 Bernard Leach established the Leach Pottery at St. Ives in Cornwall and in 1925 William Staite Murray became pottery tutor at the Royal College of Art. In contrast to Leach and his followers, who mainly made wheel-thrown pots, Wren used a wide variety of techniques such as building with slabs or coils of clay and making tiles and figurines in moulds. Wren used commercially produced glazes, though often in an experimental way. The Oxshott Pottery participated in the British Empire Exhibition of 1924–25 and in the Artist Craftsman Exhibitions organised annually from 1923 to 1938 by Henry Wren at the Central Hall, Westminster.

Textile designs

From the late 1930s, Denise Wren began to design textiles to compensate for dwindling sales of pottery at Oxshott. Under the name of the Knox Guild, she took a stand at the British Industries Fair in 1937. This enabled her to make contact with some Manchester based textile printers like Grafton’s, Simpson and Godlee, Tootals and Whitworth and Mitchell. Kingston Museum’s archive holds records of over 160 pattern designs she sold between the mid 1940s and 1951 to manufacturers like these.

Later career

During the 1950s, Denise’s daughter Rosemary Wren, a potter known for her animal figures, experimented at Oxshott with a technique called saltglazing. The Wrens developed a new kiln to fire saltglazed stoneware. Denise and Rosemary Wren became known for their revival of saltglazed stoneware. They sold their wares through various London galleries including the Craft Potters Association during the 1950s and 1960s. Towards the end of her life, Wren was known for her handbuilt elephant figures.

Today Wren's work can be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Crafts Study Centre at Farnham, Surrey, York Art Gallery and Aberystwyth University Ceramics Collection.

References

External links

• Samuels, Charlotte 'Inside the archive of pioneering studio potter and designer Denise Wren' in 'Museum Crush' 13/09/2018
• Kingston Museum Denise Wren Flickr album

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