Victor Skellern

Victor G. Skellern (1909–1966) was a British ceramics designer and stained glass producer who was the art director at Wedgwood from 1934 to 1965. He helped to modernise Wedgwood, and his design work was a factor in the company's resurgence after 1935. He was also known for employing well-known designers from outside the company. Skellern's ceramics designs were exhibited at Grafton Galleries and the Britain Can Make It exhibition (1946) in London. Some of his designs are now on display at the V&A Museum, Yale Center for British Art, Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences and the Wedgwood Museum. His design "Strawberry Hill", with Millicent Taplin, was awarded the Council of Industrial Design's Design of the Year Award in 1957.

Biography Skellern was born in 1909, he worked in design for Wedgwood at the Etruria Works, under the supervision of John Goodwin, while studying art at the Burslem and Hanley Schools of Art, where he was tutored by Gordon Forsyth and Percy Lloyd. His earliest design for the company is documented in 1929. He then studied stained glass with Edward Bawden at the Royal College of Art (1930–34). and exhibited a stained-glass window in 1936.

In 1934, he rejoined Wedgwood as the company's art director, replacing Goodwin on his retirement, becoming the first person to hold the post with a formal education in design. He remained in the position for the rest of his career, at first at the Etruria site and from 1940 at the new Barlaston factory. This included collaborating with Wedgwood's production director Norman Wilson to develop novel glazes, His design work has been cited as one of the reasons for the company's resurgence after 1935. He also developed Wedgwood's use of well-known designers from outside the company, including Keith Murray, (Murray was first employed by Wedgwood as a freelance designer in 1933, but Skellern continued the association until 1936, when Murray started to plan the company's new factory at Barlaston.)

He was an associate of the Royal College of Art and a fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists. His 1930s tableware designs were reasonably inexpensive He remained in charge of the design department through the Second World War, designing "Victory Ware", a utilitarian range in earthenware described as "highly practical" and "austere".

Cheryl Buckley describes the work of Skellern and other male Wedgwood designers of the period, including Murray, Ravilious and Wilson, as "simple, relatively unadorned, and rectilinear"; Diane Taylor considers the works of Skellern, Taplin and Star Wedgwood, another Wedgwood in-house designer, to present a "coherent stylistic approach... based upon simplicity and restraint". Several of his designs are preserved in the permanent ceramics collection of the V&A Museum, including "Forest Folk" (1934), "Persian Pony" (1939), "Asia" (1956), "Lincoln" (1956), "Strawberry Hill" (1957), Examples of his designs are also preserved at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences in Sydney, and the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston.