The term  Art Pottery has been used since  the second half of the 19th Century,  and refers to one of  individually designed and decorated pieces, produced in a workshop run by a craftsman or craft group.  The term also includes the work of artists who finish individual pieces signed in studios set up by firms such as Doulton and Minton.

By the mid 19th century, almost all the United Kingdoms pottery and porcelain was industrially produced. In an effort to counter this, a number of small pottery workshops sprang up under the umbrella of the Art Pottery Movement.

They where inspired by john Ruskin's call for a return to the Crafts tradition of workers being  allowed to express their creativity freely.   The first products of these new potteries came  in the 1860's when Doulton began a collaboration with students of the Lambeth School of Art  in south London to produce  salt-glazed stoneware's.

Some of the hand thrown pieces produced at there Lambeth studio where decorated by  leading artists of the day  such as Hannah Barlow or George Tinworth, and at auction today these can sell for hundreds of pounds or more a piece.

Individually signed articles were also produced by the four Martin Brothers, whose imaginative animal forms were influenced both by natural history and by ancient grotesques.  No two pieces produced  at their Fulham and Southhall workshops between 1873 and 1915 were the same. These to are highly collectable today, their vases can fetch between £100.00 and £3000.00 and their distinctive bird tobacco jars fro £400.00 to £40,000.00.

The influence in Japanese design on studio potters has been considerable, and can be seen in the work of the 19th century makers associated with the  Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements.  Their work was designed as art pottery  and intended to be Beautiful rather than practical.

William De Morgan who was closely associated with the arts and Crafts movement, is best known for his blue green so called (Persian wares) based on Turkish Isnik designs of the 16th Century.,  They range from large plaques to a variety of vases, and can fetch very high prices today.

Such was the success of  these  exciting one of pieces that other potters turned to studio work.  Staffordshire potter William Moorcroft was responsible from 1898 fro the Art Pottery Department  at J Macintyre & Co, where he developed a range of art pottery vases and tea wares known as Florian Ware.  Other pieces much sought after today  came from Pilkingtons royal Lancastrian Pottery, and from Dells Robbia pottery established at Birkenhead in the 1890s.