Intense colors, abstract compositions of lines and constructivist patterns on cake plates, cups and saucers – the sprayed decoration in ceramics of the 1920s and 1930s belongs to a different current in modern aesthetics than the functional, unadorned objects of the Werkbund and the Bauhaus. Applied using efficient stencil and spray techniques, they pay tribute both to rationalization and to the avant-garde painting of the early 20th century. Spray-decorated ceramics continued to be an economical and fashionable commodity even during the Great Depression, manufactured and marketed in hundreds of variations, and representing the economic, social, technical and artistic discourses of the times: the conception of artistic and design work, the relations between unique, individually made pieces and anonymous mass production, between
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