One of the stars of the Fantastique exhibit at WMODA is Miss Margaret E. Thompson who depicted the enchanting world of Fairyland in Faience for Royal Doulton in the early 1900s. Little is known about Margaret Thompson’s personal life, but it is believed that she was born in Calcutta, India

Chihuly’s work on paper is as exciting and unpredictable as his work in glass. As Chihuly says, “The drawings have given me a new freedom – if I can do it on paper, I can do it with the glass.” The two paintings at WMODA date from 1996 and were

The Mermaid Parade will march down Surf Avenue in Coney Island on June 22 marking the beginning of summer for residents of this seaside community. It’s as if our Sirens of the Sea exhibit in Fantastique has come to life! The Mermaid Parade started in 1983 and is cited as

The World of Wedgwood hosted a wonderful weekend and collectors fair on June 1 and 2 where Louise Irvine introduced WMODA to a new audience. Specialist dealers presented choice pieces of Royal Doulton, Wedgwood, and Moorcroft art pottery to eager collectors, including several who had traveled from the USA. Caroline

Fantastique FaienceForty years ago this summer, The Doulton Story exhibition opened at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and launched my career in the world of ceramics. I have been taking a trip down memory lane and tracing many of the original objects on display at this ground-breaking exhibition

One of the most popular additions to the WMODA collection is the Royal Doulton inkwell entitled Votes for Women. The virago also amused the late Diana, Princess of Wales, when she visited the Sir Henry Doulton Museum in 1984. The grumpy old woman and her ugly baby date from 1908

At the end of the 19th century, several British potters were inspired to “chase the rainbow.” One of the most successful was the Pilkington factory in Lancashire, which was established in 1891 to make tiles and later art pottery. Their talented glaze chemists developed lustrous glaze effects which were called

by Louise Irvine Ostriches in Ceramic Art I have been fascinated by ostriches since my childhood. I treasured a photograph of my grandma riding an ostrich that she sent to me after she went to live in South Africa when I was a little girl. Sadly, I didn’t get a

George White painted “the human form divine with beauty, grace, and delicacy” according to Doulton’s Art Director, Charles J. Noke. He also had the “unusual power of fixing the personality of his subject and caught the likeness which is more than could be said of many who profess to paint