Velsen aardewerk

Here are a few examples of Dutch art deco pottery made at the Velsen pottery. More examples can be seen on www.velsenaardewerk.nl

History; On the 20th of may 1920 Eelke Snel, Koen Mertens, Jan van Ham and Cees Muyens started a new pottery under the name “De vier paddelstoelen” (The four mushrooms). You can see 1 example of that in the last picture just between the two Velsen vases in green.

This didn’t last very long and in December of the same year Eelke and Koen started their own company in Velsen. This didn’t seem to be the right combination, because only four years later Eelke went on alone. Mertens left the factory after a year (because they changed the process from handwork to using moulds), but did some Freelance work for a couple of years. Eelke tried to make a cheap but beautiful kind of pottery and succeeded , because shortly after this a lot of workers joined the factory. The first designs were hand painted with squares on a cream coloured and gray background.

When the designers Carl Gellings and Willem Stuurman came into the picture, the simple designs turned a bit more to art. In the years to come the designs changed to more delicate objects. Unfortunately the factory under the name N.V. Kennemer Potterij (IJmuiden-oost-Velsen) went bankrupt in 1932