SECLA (Portugal)

SECLA was born in Caldas da Rainha, one of the main places for pottery in Portugal, in 1947, and it's now sadly closed.
SECLA stands for "Sociedade de Exportação e Cerâmica, Lda." wich means that most of the pieces were destinated to the foreign market, especialy the USA and the UK.

In the beginning of the 50s, SECLA opened a pottery studio where artists could experiment new shapes and techniques.
These plaques were made in the studio, by Ferreira da Silva, one of the most important ceramists of the XX century in Portugal.

16X16X3 cm







15X15X2 cm

I have this set of plaques and I would like to attach them to a wood board so I can display them on a wall.
Can someone give me a suggestion about how to do it? If I use glue, what kind of glue should I use not to damage the plaques?

Here is a page from a 1960 american magazine showing concerns about what are the next Design trends.
At the down right corner you can see a note about the SECLA exhibition at The Architectural League of New York.



These pictures shows aspects of the exhibition, the entrance and the window outside.

Varig (Brazilian airlines) ashtray designed by Ferreira da Silva.
Here we have two examples, the one with the matte black finishing it's from an earlier period.

15x7,5x3 cm

In this factory catalogue page from c.1955 we can see one of the first trays that later was addapted and became the Varig ashtray, and also some vase shaped lamps.

Exactly the same size as the Varig ashtrays.

These vase shaped lamps were produced after Ferreira da Silva models and show a raised landscape of the small fishing village of Nazaré.

On the same catalogue page we can see a candlestick, it looks as it can also be used as a jug.
Here we have a pair of diferent sizes.

During the 50s and 60s SECLA produced large number of containers to Coffee House liqueur, a product of the Virgin Islands that was imported and sold in the US market. These handpainted containers were made in three diferent colour combinations and two sizes:
11 cm and 30 cm.
Now they commonly appear described as bud vases.

Hi everybody, thanks for the encouragement. I'm really enjoying being around and learning a lot by reading all the old posts.
About the portuguese pottery: I'm trying to establish a kind of genealogy for these pieces, most have strong influences from abroad, so, if they remind you of something you have seen before, I would very much apreciate the references and all the comments you can make.

Do you know if SECLA ever exported to the UK?

Hi, yes a lot. Most of the pieces I'm posting come from the UK and USA. Portugal was a very conservative country after WWII as we lived in a dictatorship, so the more daring designs using a modernist vocabulary were mostly to export, that's why I'm so interested in recovering and collect these pieces.

I'll have to keep my eyes open then, some really nice pieces.

Yes please