The modern market for Martin Brothers pottery has been defined by key exhibitions and the sales of important collections. Here is ATG’s pick of five events in the last 50 years.

Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | ATG Reporter

1978 British art pottery specialist Richard Dennis stages landmark exhibition The Martin Brothers Potters at Sotheby’s Belgravia, showing 719 pieces from miniatures to big birds.

1980 In Vancouver, MacMillan & Perrin Gallery holds a stellar exhibition of Martinware including 46 birds, 83 grotesques, approximately 150 pots plus design books owned by Robert Wallace Martin.

1984 The Boobies, Boojums, and Snarks, Ceramic Curiosities of the Martin Brothers exhibition is held at the Jordan Volpe Gallery.

1995 David Rago and Phillip Chasen of New York’s Gallery 532 put on a show titled The Martin Brothers. The 97 items include the Gladstone and Disraeli birds sold by private treaty in the early 2000s for £150,000.

2001 Sotheby’s New York sells the encyclopaedic collection of British art pottery assembled with extraordinary speed by Californians Allen Harriman and Edward Judd in the 1970s-80s. Their Spanish-style villa in the Hollywood hills includes a $1m collection of Martin Brothers items.