Crisis plate

Crisis ceramics

How inventive do you have to be as an artist to still make ends meet in times of crisis? Sell your work, choose a different genre or adapt to the public's taste? Chris Lanooy, one of our most famous ceramists of the twentieth century, undoubtedly asked himself these questions when the stock market crash of 1929 heralded a period of great unemployment and poverty. He found the solution in a series of special 'crisis plates', which he brought onto the market in 1931 - 1932.

Chris Lanooy (1881 - 1948) began his career as a pottery painter at various factories. There he painted vases and other decorative pottery with decorative motifs such as flowers, fish, dragons and butterflies. He proved to have a special talent for drawing. Nevertheless, around 1908 he decided to turn his back on figurative decorations on ceramics. In the meantime he had established himself as an independent potter in Gouda. Lanooy created his vases and bowls by hand and covered them with colourful glazes that he composed himself. He experimented endlessly in his studio to create new glaze effects. And he did so with great success. From the outset he was given the opportunity to exhibit his work, such as in 1910 at the World Exhibition in Brussels and, in the same year, at an exhibition in New York, where Mondriaan was also represented. The solo exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam that he was granted in 1914 marked his major breakthrough. He was 33 at the time. Nanne Ottema, the founder of the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics, also bought ceramics from Lanooy at an early age, and he continued to do so until his death. In Lanooy's work he saw a direct relationship with the centuries-old Chinese and Japanese 'glazed ceramics' that he had in his collection.

Wall dish with two owls, 1931 – 1932, earthenware, Ø 28,7 cm, on loan from Ottema-Kingma Stichting.

Lanooy considered his works to be art and therefore gave them titles, such Wolkenspel, Hazenvel or Rijzende zon. He was a prominent ceramicist and had good times, but he also went through periods when things were not going so well. In those times it was important to come up with cheaper products that appealed to a wide audience. For his 25th anniversary, he launched a series of a thousand wall plates that he painted with all kinds of mushrooms. That was a great success. When the economic crisis broke out in the early thirties, Lanooy decided to release such a series of plates again, this time with birds. He did not draw the images with owls, parakeets, toucans, penguins and many other birds freehand, but applied them with the help of something called a ponsief. That was faster and therefore cheaper. At the bottom he put his signature, the word 'crisis' and the time indication '31-'32.

The plates were for sale for fifteen Dutch guilders. Part of that amount went to the fund of the National Crisis Committee that had just been established to alleviate the worst needs of the long-term unemployed. The Dutch Princess Juliana, honorary chair of this fund, was the first to purchase such a 'crisis plate' by Lanooy. Nanne Ottema also added a bird plate to his collection. The two barn owls on this plate are depicted lifelike and in detail, but are very sober in terms of colour. With this series of Crisis plates, Chris Lanooy gained several advantages: he earned a living with it in hard times and it earned him a lot of positive publicity in the press.

Clients

An early admirer was the well-known art connoisseur H.P. Bremmer. Through him, Lanooy came into contact with a number of wealthy enthusiasts, including a striking number of ladies. Helene Kröller-Müller and Hermine Hannema-de Stuers were among his regular clients for many years. He regularly visited them with a stock of new work. With his artistic outfit and long beard, Lanooy was a striking appearance and like no other he knew how to entice his clientele to purchase yet another new pot or vase. This was certainly also due to the fascinating stories he told about them. For example, how a night-time snow shower had inspired him to create a new work or how, to make the colours of the glazes glow more, he threw in a gold tenner and sometimes more than one. The latter also explained the high prices of his ceramics: he asked more than three hundred Dutch guilders for some pots.

Karin Gaillard, curator European ceramics at Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics.