Featured Icelandic Ceramics - Any Experts?

Yep, funny thing!
I have now nearly a full Google images page under "kyratisation" or "kyratised" entry

 

Wow. That's incredible. Your talents are being shared with the world now.

 

I heard back about the Icelandic Ceramics, and I wanted to share what I learned. I also included the address of the person who kindly responded.
@moreotherstuff - perhaps you can find out about your pieces from her:

Þóra Sigurbjörnsdóttir <thorasi@honnunarsafn.is>
Wed 2/17/2021 1:07 AM
Þóra Sigurbjörnsdóttir
Sérfræðingur - safneign / Specialist- collection
Hönnunarsafn Íslands / Museum of Design and Applied Art, Iceland

Tel: +354 512 1526 / +354 617 1526

From: Þóra Sigurbjörnsdóttir
Sent: þriðjudagur, 16. febrúar 2021 17:10
To: Hönnunarsafn Íslands <honnunarsafn@honnunarsafn.is>
Subject: RE: Glit Ceramics

These are nice pieces especially the latter- the dish.

I see that the artist that decorated it has marked it with her initials “Þ.H. ‘ 65”. The name of the artist is Thorbjorg Hoskuldsdottir and she worked at Old Glit from 1963- 1967. She is an artist and has worked as such for many years in Iceland.

You can roughly recognize the periods by checking which kind of stamp or markings they use.

There are actually more periods in the company's history, 4 to be exact. The first one: Old Glit, is from 1957 – 1968 where the art director of the company was the later sculptor Ragnar Kjartansson (the grandfather of now a well known video and performance artist by the same name).

Ragnar used to emphasize that the artist that worked for him should be creative and decorate the items after their liking. The atmosphere at the company was like a social club for young and old artists in Iceland. The stamps from that period are Glit and Lava Glit as is on your dish. Ragnar designed a method to use lava in the clay so that the texture was very rough.

Later after Ragnar quit to become a sculptor, the company got much bigger and that period is called Big Glit. They hired a german ceramicist to be art director and run the workshop. His name is Gerhard Schwartz and I think he is still alive. That period is from 1968 – about 1973. They marked still with the Glit stamp from earlier, but also like on the vase. I am not sure who SH is – it could be Sigurdur Hauksson- who went on to start his own company in ceramics and produced quite a lot. The fat lava ceramics came from this period in Glits history. Gerhard developed them and taught a lot of young ceramic artist how to throw and work the clay. He was a very good craftsman. But the company wanted to grow to fast and he quit after a few years.

The two last periods of the company's history are not so interesting in terms of the production, but a man called Orri Vigfusson bought it and then they started to use a logo- stamp, like the one that appears on your vase. So it could be from that last period. From 1973 – 1994.

From 1994 – 1996 a county in Iceland bought all the equipment and moved it to Snæfellsnes peninsula, where there were ideas to about how that should save the town. It did not.

I hope this clarifys something for you. If I can help you further with other ceramics from Iceland I am happy to.

 

Oh fabulous information! Thanks, Kiko!

 

Thank you. I was surprised when I got a response after so long. I loved that it was detailed and she made a effort to describe the whole picture as well as the individual pieces. The vase seems somewhat formulaic now that she mentions it while the plate is wild and crazy in comparison.

 

Yes it's a thoughtful and thorough response, very helpful. I do love the lava look and idea. I figured it had real lava mixed into the clay because lava melt temperature is much higher than a ceramics kiln temperature, so I was hoping to learn it was possible to fire them together.

I love your vase and plate. While I no longer actively "collect" any pottery, I still hunt a little bit here and there, thanks for sharing your correspondence.

 

I learn here and like to pass on any information that I get, so others can have the benefit.