WILLEM STUURMAN (?) ZENITH CRISISGOED

The Great Depression did not kill off production of ceramics in Holland completely. But economic circumstances forced drastic changes to what was produced. "In 1932 sales from Zuid-Holland fell sharply. This together with the general depression worldwide, made the director of Zuid-Holland, Willy Hoyng, dismiss some 160 painters. In order to make up for this loss and to try and maintain volume production, new coloured spray glazes were experimented with. The other factories also did this type of work, notably Zenith with the Willem Stuurman examples. Even after the recovery in the economy in 1937, the factories continued to make spray glazes."
http://www.goudadesign.co.uk/collectorsgallery19.html

Zenith is one of the factories that fall under the umbrella term "Gouda Pottery".

The period before and after World War I interests me. It has been the focus of my collecting for many years now. The Great Depression period saw painter/decorators being put off. At the same time the design of the wares became paramount. Decoration was kept to a minimum. In Dutch the term for these wares is: "Crisisgoed".

These days this style of ware is described as "Amsterdamse School" style. and was executed by Zenith, Gouda / the Netherlands 1932-'40.

This earthenware bowl is inscribed underneath: 667 Zenith Gouda.
Design number 667 falls out of the sequence "386-646". Those are the Zenith designs attributed to Stuurman these days. Is it a Stuurman design or is it "in the school of Stuurman"?

Willem Stuurman (1908 - 1995)
"He started in 1922 at the Quellinusschool (Amsterdam) by taking courses from Bert Nienhuis (1873-1960). 1927 he became teacher at the same school ("Kunstnijverheidsinstituut"). He worked from 1928 to 1934 at Eskaf in Huizen, Kennemerland in Velsen, St. Lukas in Maarssen, Zenith and Goedewaagen. The around 300 Art Deco potteries he designed for Zenith (Plateelbakkerij en pijpenfabrieken Fa. P.J. van der Want Az., Gouda, 1749-1984) in only 3 years are very famous (model numbers 386-646). From 1932 was worked as independent artist. He also teached pottery to princess Beatrix (now the Dutch queen). He died 1995 in Amersfoort."

http://www.dutchceramics.nl/willemstuurman.html