Robert & Sheila Fournier, (Various locations).

Information on the potteries where they worked, from the BSPM book:

1946-59 Ducketts Wood pottery (Hertfordshire).
1961-65 Greenwich studios (London). Sheila was potting from 1961.
1966-71 Castle hill cottages (Kent).
1971-87 Lacock pottery (Wiltshire).

When they ceased potting in 1987, The Lacock pottery was taken over by David & Simone McDowell.

https://www.20thcenturyforum.com/t30640-david-and-simone-mcdowell-poulshot-pottery-and-lacock-pottery

More information on Sheila Fournier, and examples of her work are here:

https://www.20thcenturyforum.com/t30650-sheila-fournier
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Just picked up 8 plates, 9 cups & 4 bowls of domestic ware made by Robert & Sheila Fournier.
Pottery Marks book shows these as made between 1961 & 1966.
Going to use them (as intended by makers)!
Alan.

well done Alan,I get more pleasure from the studio that I use everyday than I do from my cabinet pieces

nice.

i can see we're going to have to avoid each other in Portsmouth's charity shops as we'll be fighting over things!

Yes, paid £5 for the lot!
However, I sometimes pay more than asking price.
I think I would recognise you from the sketch!

I posted this picture elsewhere on here but this is the building that the Fournier's potted in during their time in Greenwich (they rented the first floor from Alan Wallwork).



It's the one with the blue sign, is on Blackheath Road and this picture was taken earlier this year.

That's interesting - I have a huge 'dish' by Wallwork, weighing in at about 10Kg, also from the '60s.
Need to get it out of loft for photo opportunity!

yes we would love to see it and all the other studio pottery you have stored away in the loft

About 6" high

Robert Fournier

I thought I spotted a Fournier lurking at the back of the Malvern pots - blantantly nicked the idea of making pots like this from his landlord, as his Greenwich landlord would say. Like it though.

Nice piece Ed

Cheers Dave , Never new that SP -it's the first one Iv'e ever had of his .

I might have said this elsewhere but it can stand repeating.

When Robert and Sheila Fournier went along to enquire about renting some upstairs rooms from Alan Wallwork in Greenwich, Robert asked Alan where he had studied pottery.

Alan replied that he had been at Goldsmiths College under a very fine head of department, Kenneth Clark, and then added that the previous head had apparantly been absolutely useless and a crap potter.

Robert then I think quite bravely pointed out that he had been head of the department before Kenneth Clark.

I've been trying to read this mark but can't make it out.

Reminds me of Cripplesease pottery

Or Lacock?

Agree with Lacock.

Brilliant I'll take a look

6 in high, the mark looks right, but I don't
have much to go on otherwise.

looks like s f to me, Fournier used a fatter R

There is a fatter RF mark and a slimmer SF (R reversed) mark in Yates-Owen. This looks like the slimmer mark.
However, the examples I've seen have been impressed on a knob of clay.

Not seen anything from the Fourniers with this glaze or stoneware body.

If is one of theirs it will be by Sheila rather than Robert and from the early 1960s. I don't know her work from that period but knowing what she made in the 1970s I would be surprised if it was her work.

Thanks SP that's what I needed to know.
The mark is very small, and on the rim, so difficult to photograph, but matches
exactly with the RF in the book.

My mistake, it is like the Robert Fournier mark in the book from the early 1960s when they rented space from Alan Wallwork.

I know that when the Fourniers went there Alan was quite rude about Robert's work but what I said above still holds true. Especially as Robert very soon started making in the "house style" of Alan and his other tenant, Bernard Rooke.

I don't think Alan meant to be rude about Robert's pots but they were talking about Alan's time at Goldsmith's College and Alan heaped great praise upon Kenneth Clark, who was Head of Pottery, during Alan's time there. It was just that Alan added that the person who had been there before Clark had been a crap potter to which Robert replied, "That was me".