GAYE LOVE (Mrs. Fishley Holland)

Two vases from Gaye Love made in 1920. She later married William Fishley Holland and became part of that potting dynasty  

Three other Lots from the same sale as the top one was in. These come from the 1960's and were  probably thrown  by William Fishley Holland and decorated by Gaye. What struck me looking at these is the decoration is absolutely superb and incredibly highly skilled. It is gorgeous. Which is intriguing, as most of the production that came out of the Fishley Holland family is nowhere as good as this. This is exceptional.
                    It is sad in a way just how many women have subsumed their very own obvious talents to the demands of family life, over the years.

I suspect it was more to do with making an income for the family, which has always a problem for potters of either sex. Unless you come from a monied background such as Katharine Pleydell Bouverie. The hours that that type of decoration would take; the price you would have to charge and the limited number of potential customers wouldn't make it viable as a means of making a living.

hi, I think the problem is not the undoubted skill of the decorator but of the pieces as a whole, they look very Victorian and unfashionable for 1920 ( and still do) .The matter of women getting overlooked in the art world is a reoccurring theme in many art group discussions (sometimes quite heated).

I have put an image of the autobiography of William Fishley Holland that I own on the Fishley Holland thread but here's a quote from that which is relevant.

"My fiancee was in the Post Office at Fremington and, as we were able to share part of her parent's house, we got married when I was twenty-one and she still managed the office for her father. I then had a guinea per week wages."

At this point his grandfather asked him about the possibility of him taking over the pottery at Fremington but Edwin Beer Fishley died before anything was settled and the pottery was left to the siblings and sold.

The young married couple never got anything from the will and so William had to get a job (at Braunton Pottery) to live.