The Georgia Museum of Art presents ‘Lycett China’ an exhibition on view Dec. 3, 2011, through March 4, 2012, in the museum’s Martha Thompson Dinos Gallery.
William Lycett (b. England, 1855, d. Atlanta, 1909), Painted rectangular dressing table platter, 12 3/4 x 9 inches. Private collection.
The exhibition “Lycett China” will be on display at the Georgia Museum of Art (GMOA) at the University of Georgia Dec. 3, 2011, through March 4, 2012, in the museum’s Martha Thompson Dinos Gallery.
Edward Lycett was a porcelain painter who emigrated from Great Britain to New York in 1861. By the early 1880s, his son William Lycett and his family had settled in Atlanta and opened a studio devoted to porcelain decoration.
The exhibition will feature about 30 pieces of china from the Atlanta studio. Although the Lycett firm is best known for its white china with gold trim, most of the pieces in this exhibition are paint decorated.
Lycett china was a staple among upper-middle-class Georgia society. “The painted and gilded china the Lycett firm produced became common in numerous Georgia households of the late 19th and early 20th century,” said Dale Couch, GMOA’s adjunct curator of decorative arts, who organized the exhibition with Michelle Miller.
The Lycett firm trained young women in the craft of porcelain decoration as a leisure activity, but also employed women who needed to make a living.
“The painted porcelain met national and international standards of quality,” said Couch, and the china displays “several sources of influence including Japanese, the aesthetic period and Sevres styles.”
Miller will deliver a presentation on Lycett china at GMOA’s Sixth Henry D. Green Symposium for the Decorative Arts, Feb. 2–4, 2012.
This exhibition is generously sponsored by the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art.
The Georgia Museum of Art is located in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the East Campus of the University of Georgia. The address is 90 Carlton Street, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602-6719. For more information, including hours, see http://www.georgiamuseum.org or call 706.542.GMOA (4662).
