The Eccentric Teapot
 Garth Clark
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 1989 Abbeville Press Pubs.
  ISBN: 089659923X

Inspired by the advent of tea drinking 4,000 years ago in China & the ceremonies that slowly evolved around it, the forms of the teapot are endlessly imaginative. From humble to elegant; from quirky to abstract, the designs of teapots have long flourished in both Eastern & Western cultures.

In this book we are introduced to some of the most sublime, outrageous & exotic teapots ever to grace a Mad Hatter's tea party. Both comfortingly familiar & utterly peculiar, this fanciful, provocative & intriguing gallery includes portrait pots of Oscar Wilde, Brooke Shields & Queen Elizabeth; teapots impersonating animals, vegetables & fruit. Teapots so far removed from the concerns of function that they resemble nothing so much as drawings of teapots.

The form of this simple object has fueled the creative passions of art, craft & industry toward ends as diverse as pure aesthetic, perfect utility, lighthearted whimsey & political satire. Some are so ugly they've become beautiful.

Garth Clark's selection of teapots range from a grotesque Colonel Sanders as a plucked chicken to the Wing & Yixing wares of centuries ago; from a piece made from chicken wire to rare & wild examples of Meissen & Wedgewood ware.

Garth Clark accompanies the exquisite photographs with essays discussing the history of tea; its harvesting & shipping as well as the story of the teapot itself with some curious historical points & analyses of the connection between ritual, cuisine & design.

The selection in this eccentric gallery ranges from weird to brilliant. From those you cannot even fill to those you ache to get your hands on. I have an old Brown Bessy which brews my tea upon my wood stove. Its marvelous shape & superb function continues to amaze me even as I gawk at the pages of The Eccentric Teapot.

More from Garth Clark: The Mad Potter of Biloxi: The Art and Life of George E. Ohr & The Book of Cups.
(03/05/00)

Rebecca