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School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk

Display artist/maker:

Stella Rebecca Crofts

Born: 1898, UK, England, Nottingham Died: 1964

Ceramicist. Active as an artist working in ceramics during the 1920s, she studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London and the Royal College of Art. She lived in Billericay, Essex. Her passion for the study of animals and birds developed at an early age when she had long periods of ill-health due to becoming infected with tuberculosis as a child.

Crofts had considerable success with her animal groups modelled and reproduced in slip-cast earthenware. The forms are carefully observed and naturalistic, but they are coloured simply by an all-over glaze in dappled brown or pink. When possible, she worked outdoors directly from life.

Crofts reached her peak between 1925 and the early 1930s, when most of the international exhibitions to which she contributed took place. These were often organised by the British Institute of Industrial Art and were most notably held in Paris and Milan in 1925, Venice in 1926, Leipzig in 1927 and across North America in 1928-9. Her work was displayed at over 185 exhibitions worldwide. Crofts is mentioned in reviews in ‘The Times’ and ‘The Studio Yearbook’ in the mid-1920s.