A Smashing New Talent

Bouke de Vries was one of London’s leading ceramic conservationists. Then he began making sculptures from broken china and porcelain and became an instant darling of collectors.

One characteristic peculiar to today’s hugely enlarged, all enveloping art world is the phenomenon of those (few) individuals who have followed non-art careers, who have become visual artists by happenstance or second choice, and who have found an art-world success that has eluded most professionals. For instance, the British artist Polly Morgan began as a taxidermist.

VIEW OUR GALLERY OF BOUKE DE VRIES

Now the new-fledged career of Bouke de Vries is offering encouraging proof that, recession or no, collectors remain hungry for new stimulants. De Vries studied fashion and textiles at Eindhoven in the Netherlands, his homeland, then at Central St. Martin’s, London. He entered the fashion world and did well there, working with, among others, John Galliano and Zandra Rhodes, before seeking greater autonomy. Good with his hands and with a keen eye, de Vries retrained as a restorer of art and precious objects. He was soon flourishing. Now in his mid 40s, his clients include the U.K.’s National Trust.

De Vries also developed a kind of an itch, a bug. It bothered him more and more that a tiny chip or a crack would damage or destroy the market value of a tremendous piece of china, a masterwork of glassware. “I started thinking about the futility of it,” he explains. “It’s still got all the history, it’s still got all the skills of 200 or 300 years ago. But it’s worth a fraction of what it would have been worth before it was damaged. It seemed rather bizarre.

“I have actually been left some objects by customers. After I gave them the estimate they said, 'Oh, don’t bother! Just throw it away. It’s not worth spending that much money on it!' And I thought this is sort of wrong. I’ve just got to do something with this. To give it its dignity back, to put it in a different context.”

The pivotal event was the breaking of a present de Vries had been given by his longtime partner—and, full disclosure, my former editor—Miles Chapman. The figurine of a Dutch boy in white Parian Ware, it had been shattered into dozens of pieces during a move.

“I repaired that because it’s very beautiful,” de Vries says. “I made them all floating. Frozen, like in an explosion. And on the inside I gave him a little red heart.”