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Porches Pottery is a producer of hand-painted pottery in the town of Porches, in the Algarve region of Portugal. The pottery style was founded in 1968 by artists Patrick Swift and Lima de Freitas, in order to revive a traditional Algarve pottery industry. Swift and de Freitas chose Porches for its history as a pottery centre, dating back for many centuries, and for its clay pits.
The origins of Porches Pottery date to the early 1960s, when Irish artist Patrick Swift first came to the Algarve and encountered a region with a system of commerce and production based around craft activities that had changed little since the Middle Ages. Potters faced difficulty competing with modern plastic and metal wares that had entered the market. In his book, Algarve: a portrait and a guide (1965), Swift noted the decline of quality pottery: "All the basic dishes were of the local Lagoa pottery — easily breakable and poorly glazed. But aesthetically pleasing and so cheap that breakages were no tragedy. Replacements after all helped to encourage an industry threatened with extinction. Even now some of the nicer old kitchen objects can no longer be obtained at the pottery. ‘People don’t buy them anymore’, say the potters, ‘so we’ve stopped making them.’" [1]
Swift was motivated to revive the craft and prove that the traditional craft-based form of socio-economic production, that had existed throughout Europe until the Industrial revolution, could be successful in the modern world. [2] Swift envisioned creating an arts & crafts centre where traditional craftspeople could sell their goods. He was soon joined by Portuguese artist Lima de Freitas. Swift said, on Lisbon, "My reason for meeting Lima on this occasion was not to talk about art. It was something much stranger stemming from our basically sympathetic view points, we had embarked on a scheme so foolhardy that, looking back on it, I do not know how we had the temerity to start. This was nothing less than to try and resuscitate the local pottery industry in our part of Algarve." [3]
To realize the venture, the two artists first approached the potter, Gregório Rodrigues, who agreed to work with them (his son, Fernando Rodrigues, worked alongside him at PorchesPottery [4] ). Swift purchased common oxides from the local hardware store, constructed a wood-burning kiln and proceeded to decorate Gregório's pots. The initial results were not successful, but they sought professional technical advice from ceramists in Lisbon and acquired an efficient kiln. Their workshop was a small 17th-century farmhouse, today a ceramics workshop called Olaria Pequena. The pottery was soon relocated to a larger building, designed by Swift, a little further down the EN125 on the western outskirts of Porches. They trained local people in the mastered control of the brush, painting freely and directly onto tin glaze in the traditional majolica technique.
Craft: Porches Pottery produces majolica, which is tin-glazed earthenware. The technique is thought to have originated in Persia, though was well established in Mesopotamia by the 9th century, where it became an alternative to the much esteemed porcelain that was beginning to appear in China. Introduced into Europe by the Moors, Iberia became famous as a centre of excellence for this type of pottery, which, due to its popular appeal, was soon spread throughout the rest of Europe.
Style: The two artists researched the designs and motifs of ancient pottery, visiting museums throughout Europe, until finally some basic patterns began to emerge as being typical of the influences imposed by past civilisations that had once dominated the Algarve. [5] These designs include the various animals, flowers and foliage that have become associated with Porches Pottery.
The Pottery: Swift designed the building that houses Porches Pottery to resemble a 17th-century farmhouse. (In Porches he also designed the interior of a 17th-century building, which he helped restore, that today is the O Leão de Porches restaurant; the original building and entrance to the International School of the Algarve, which he was instrumental in founding; the stations of the cross at the Igreja Matriz (Porches), where he is buried.) The pottery has an adjoining Café, Bar Bacchus, which is decorated with tiles painted by Swift. There is an outside eating area decorated with tiles designed by Swift's late daughter, Katherine Swift, who managed the pottery following her father's death. Porches Pottery is still run by the Swift family. Porches Pottery's role in the revival of the regional craft has been recognised. [6] [7]
The Algarve is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of 4,997 km2 (1,929 sq mi) with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities.
Faience or faïence is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result, the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions of porcelain styles.
In different periods of time and in different countries, the term majolica has been used for two distinct types of pottery.
Carvoeiro is a town and a former civil parish in the municipality (concelho) of Lagoa, Algarve, Portugal. In 2013, the parish merged into the new parish Lagoa e Carvoeiro. The population in 2011 was 2,721, in an area of 11.66 km². It is located about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of Lagoa.
Maiolica is tin-glazed pottery decorated in colours on a white background. The most renowned Italian maiolica is from the Renaissance period. These works were known as istoriato wares when depicting historical and mythical scenes. By the late 15th century, multiple locations, mainly in northern and central Italy, were producing sophisticated pieces for a luxury market in Italy and beyond. In France, maiolica developed as faience, in the Netherlands and England as delftware, and in Spain as talavera. In English, the spelling was anglicised to majolica, but the pronunciation usually preserved the vowel with an i as in kite.
Azulejo is a form of Spanish and Portuguese painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework. Azulejos are found on the interior and exterior of churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, and nowadays, restaurants, bars and even railways or subway stations. They are an ornamental art form, but also had a specific functional capacity like temperature control in homes.
Being one of the most ancient nation-states in Europe, Portugal has a long music history, which accompanied and strongly contributed to the development of the music history in Europe.
Lagoa is a city and municipality in the district of Faro, in the Portuguese region of Algarve. The population of the municipality in 2011 was 22,975, in an area of 88.25 km². Its urban population, in the city of Lagoa proper, is 6,100 inhabitants. An important travel destination, its coast has won numerous accolades. Marinha Beach was considered by the Michelin Guide as one of the 10 most beautiful beaches in Europe and as one of the 100 most beautiful beaches in the world.
Mintons was a major company in Staffordshire pottery, "Europe's leading ceramic factory during the Victorian era", an independent business from 1793 to 1968. It was a leader in ceramic design, working in a number of different ceramic bodies, decorative techniques, and "a glorious pot-pourri of styles - Rococo shapes with Oriental motifs, Classical shapes with Medieval designs and Art Nouveau borders were among the many wonderful concoctions". As well as pottery vessels and sculptures, the firm was a leading manufacturer of tiles and other architectural ceramics, producing work for both the Houses of Parliament and United States Capitol.
Palissy ware is a 19th-century term for ceramics produced in the style of the famous French potter Bernard Palissy, who referred to his own work in the familiar manner as rustique. It is therefore also known as rusticware. Palissy's distinctive style of polychrome lead-glazed earthenware in a sombre earth-toned palette, using naturalistic scenes of plants and animals cast from life, was much imitated by other potters both in his own lifetime and especially in the 19th century. In this revival, pottery in Palissy's style was produced by Charles-Jean Avisseau of Tours, who rediscovered Palissy's techniques in 1843, his relatives the Landais family of Tours, Georges Pull of Paris, Maurice, and Barbizet.
Tin-glazed pottery is earthenware covered in lead glaze with added tin oxide which is white, shiny and opaque ; usually this provides a background for brightly painted decoration. It has been important in Islamic and European pottery, but very little used in East Asia. The pottery body is usually made of red or buff-colored earthenware and the white glaze imitated Chinese porcelain. The decoration on tin-glazed pottery is usually applied to the unfired glaze surface by brush with metallic oxides, commonly cobalt oxide, copper oxide, iron oxide, manganese dioxide and antimony oxide. The makers of Italian tin-glazed pottery from the late Renaissance blended oxides to produce detailed and realistic polychrome paintings.
Talavera pottery is a Mexican and Spanish pottery tradition from Talavera de la Reina, in Spain. On 2019, it was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The Convent of Saint Joseph is a former convent and current cultural centre of Lagoa, situated in the civil parish of Lagoa, urbanized part of the city of Lagoa, Portugal. Built on the north edge of the old quarter, with its belvedere tower straddling the main road north to Silves, it hosts exhibitions of painting, photography, sculpture and pottery, as well as various shows and discussions in its auditorium.
Porches is a civil parish/freguesia in the municipality of Lagoa in Portugal, about 10 km east of the city of Lagoa. The population in 2011 was 2,011, in an area of 15.64 km2. It was elevated to the status of a town on July 12, 2001.
The Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation is a church situated in the civil parish of Porches, in the municipality of Lagoa in the Portuguese region of Algarve.
Patrick Swift (1927–1983) was an Irish painter who worked in Dublin, London and the Algarve, Portugal.
Katherine Swift (1956–2004) was an Irish-born Portuguese painter, illustrator and ceramicist.
Estudio Destra Internationally renowned Ceramics/Pottery Workshop based in Silves, Algarve, Portugal.
Ceramics in Mexico date back thousands of years before the Pre-Columbian period, when ceramic arts and pottery crafts developed with the first advanced civilizations and cultures of Mesoamerica. With one exception, pre-Hispanic wares were not glazed, but rather burnished and painted with colored fine clay slips. The potter's wheel was unknown as well; pieces were shaped by molding, coiling and other methods,
Lima de Freitas (1927–1998) was a Portuguese painter, illustrator, ceramicist and writer. He studied at the Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa.