Susan Williams-Ellis: A Life in Design

Susan Williams-Ellis (1918-2007) was the founder of Portmeirion Potteries, best known for her iconic ceramic designs including Totem, MagicCity, MagicGardenBotanic Garden.

The extraordinary success story of the Potteries, however, represented only one facet of a career that spanned over sixty years, and this exhibition will explore Susan's whole life as an artist, featuring a wide selection of her work from student days to travels around the world in her 80s.

Studying at the Chelsea School of Art between 1935 and 1938, she was taught by, amongst others, Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore. Pen illustrations from her time at college include the cover for the Chelsea Stunt in December 1938 and illustrations for In and Out of Doors, a book put together by her whole family. During the war years she worked at the Air Ministry, drawing highly classified maps for bombing raids. In collaboration with her mother, she also made propaganda posters promoting both civilian contributions to the war effort and the Britain that was to be built after hostilities ceased.

Later work included book covers and illustrations, furniture designs, fashion pieces to promote Welsh wool and furnishing fabrics. Her work was shown at several key exhibitions, including the Festival of Britain, and her designs helped shape Portmeirion, the fantasy holiday village in North Wales built by her father, Clough Williams-Ellis.

In particular Susan had, from an early age, a fascination for natural history and marine life. By the late 1950s she had qualified as a diver, and was to spend much of her time snorkelling in tropical seas with a drawing board slung around her neck, sketching the colourful fish and corals in their habitats. Having visited some locations a number of times over thirty years, her work documents the destruction of the reefs by global warming.

This exhibition heralds a special year of celebrations as Portmeirion Potteries celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2010.

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