GRACE LILIAN MOODY - DEVON UK - 'GLM'.

In the Encyclopedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks there is an entry for ‘Grace L. MOODY, Miss.’

Godden notes that she had worked in industry and had held various teaching positions before setting up in Winterslow, Wiltshire c. 1960 and c 1963 was moving her studio to Bridestow in Devon.

I've not been able to anything else on the net about her work except for a very helpful mark on Pinterest by Naomi Mott. It showed the mark GLM and had GRACE L MOODY / WINTERSLOW. That photo gave me the mystery name behind GLM.

Perhaps someone might know a bit more about her work before Winterslow and afterwards in Bridestowe?

UPDATE – August 2026

Four years after posting this piece I have finally found some fascinating additional material on Grace L. Moody.

In April 2025, Stride & Son in Chichester sold a remarkable archive described as a folder containing 'approximately 65 watercolour designs for ceramics by Grace L. Moody, together with related correspondence'. The folder itself appears to have been labelled 'Pot Designs – Commercial – Industrial'.

The surviving designs are particularly interesting in view of Godden's statement that Moody had worked in industry before establishing her own studio. They show a very accomplished mid-century ceramic designer working with floral, abstract and repeat patterns, using broad areas of freely brushed colour combined with fine, often calligraphic, black lines.

Seeing these designs has also strengthened my confidence in the attribution of this large GLM-marked platter. The vigorous brushwork, pale blue and mauve colouring, black linear details and almost fantastical treatment of the fish/bird-like creature sit very comfortably beside Moody's surviving design work.

There is clearly much more still to discover about 'Grace L. Moody' and her career, but at last we have a substantial group of her original designs with which to compare her surviving studio pottery.

And recently even more info about 'Grace Lilian Moody' has surfaced.

In 2025 an extensive archive of her work appeared at auction. It included a battered exercise book used from about '1953 into the early 1960s', together with '39 loose original drawings and designs', commercial ceramic patterns, technical notes, correspondence and other ephemera.

The exercise book is particularly fascinating. Its first page contains a rough design for a charger celebrating the "1953 Coronation" — amusingly, opposite a recipe for brewing “Hooch”! Elsewhere are designs for mythical birds and beasts, fish, flowers, pottery shapes and dress designs, together with glaze, colour and firing notes. Commercial work includes references to 'Portland Potteries', part of the Ridgway group, and to 'Blythe' and an “Autograph" range.

Among the loose works is a colourful triangular design inscribed “Grace Lilian Moody RCA 1953”, confirming both her full middle name and her association with the 'Royal College of Art'. Another survival is a screen-printed RCA poster for a lecture by 'Nikolaus Pevsner', 'The Englishness of English Art'. There are also architectural drawings, interior-design work, studies of birds and animals and some wonderfully imaginative ceramic designs.

Especially useful are two pieces of Grace Moody’s printed stationery headed:
'GRACE L. MOODY, DES., R.C.A.
CERAMIC ARTIST & DESIGNER
JUBILEE COTTAGE, WINTERSLOW, NR. SALISBURY, WILTS.'

This provides contemporary confirmation of her Winterslow studio and professional title.

The archive also makes the decoration of my large 'GLM-marked platter' much easier to understand. Moody repeatedly used freely brushed colour combined with very fine, energetic black lines, and she clearly had a particular fondness for fantastic birds, beasts and fish. The relationship between these drawings and the strange bird/fish-like creature on my platter is quite striking.

A second large GLM-marked charger has also appeared, decorated with an elaborate female head and floral headdress. Its turquoise, mauve and pink palette, loose washes and calligraphic black drawing again relate closely to both my platter and the surviving designs.

According to the information accompanying the archive, Grace Lilian Moody was born in London in the late 1920s, trained at the Royal College of Art, worked commercially as a ceramic designer and also taught pottery. She later established studios at 'Lower Swanwick', 'Winterslow' around 1960 and 'Bridestow/Bridestowe, Devon', around 1963, before eventually returning to the Salisbury area.

What began for me as a mysterious 'GLM' mark and a few lines in Godden has therefore developed into a much fuller picture of an imaginative and highly accomplished mid-century British ceramic artist and designer.

L : 35 cm - 14 “
W : 29.5 cm - 11”