Figure group, Axis deer, des. Skeaping, man. Wedgwood, 1927

Figure group, in cream-glazed earthernware of seven deer in the chase, in a strong Art Deco style.

Given by the Secretary of the British Institute of Industrial Art

one in a series of fourteen animal models designed by the sculptor Skeaping for Wedgwood

Designed in a stong Art Deco style, these mass produced figures allowed this aesthetic to enter the modest middle class town environment. It is very early for an Art Deco object in Great Britain.

Interest in small scale sculpture had grown markedly in Britain since the late nineteenth century. Some sculptors like Skeaping were keen to adapt their work to suit the mass-production requirements of the ceramic industry. Monochrome and moulded figure groups, were economic to produce and survived, while the more expensive hand-painted figures which were also popular in the 1920s declined, Skeaping's figures continued in production well into the 1950s. The continued popularity of these figures in interesting - they presumably fitted in to a watered-down Moderne in the 1930s and 40s. Skeaping was interested in Modernism, especially the work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, to whom Skeaping was married at the time.
[Susan McCormack, 'British Design at Home', p.112]

C.426-1934