About AD Antiques
Alison Davey is the Founder and Managing Director of AD antiques. She is an Internationally renowned expert in the field of British Art Pottery and works with collectors, museums, interior designers and investors worldwide.
Alison Davey
Alison Davey formed AD Antiques in 1997. Her background is not in the fine arts; she graduated from Edinburgh University in 1995 with an MA and thereafter practiced in the field of Criminal Justice. Her last appointment was at Edinburgh prison where she undertook risk assessments and therapeutic intervention programmes with long term prisoners.
Throughout her training and employment, she developed an interest in the decorative arts, and during this time she began “trading” at car boot sales. This quickly developed into a passion or obsession, and for several years used her weekends and annual leave to attend and exhibit at show-ground antiques fairs throughout the UK. In 2000 Alison decided that she had to get the dealing bug out of her system once and for all; she resigned her job, moved to Staffordshire and began trading full time.
During the early years, the business retailed all manner of decorative arts including glass, metals, jewellery from the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau Movements. However, Alison developed a particular interest in British Art Pottery. The appeal comes as much from the social and political dimension that inspired the manufacturers, as to the aesthetic quality and originality of the ceramics.
The designers and factories of the era were pushing the boundaries of creativity, chemistry and design. Many of these studios were actively rebuking the machine age and supporting the social philosophers of the day who were proposing the return to local crafts, the dignity of the worker and the movement away from elaborate ornamentation to simpler lines and design.
In business Alison too was pushing her own boundaries; she stepped up from the Showground Fairs and embarked on the Vetted Fair Circuit. These Fairs were predominantly traditional Antiques Shows with no history of the more “contemporary” British Art Pottery. However, over the years she established herself and her client base. During one year AD antiques exhibited at 37 antiques fairs across the length and breadth of the UK! Simultaneously she was one of the first dealers in the UK to have a stand-alone website, initially coding her own to embrace the World Wide Web in the early 2000s.
More latterly AD antiques had become synonymous with the very best of British Art Pottery and Alison has a reputation for the highest standards of integrity, research and due diligence. Now based in the North Cotswolds, Alison regularly works with museums and has contributed to significant museum acquisitions, consults to television programmes such as Antiques Roadshow and is a regular article writer for Specialist Magazines, Journals and Blogs. She has curated 7 acclaimed selling exhibitions and has, for many years, been a Member and Committee member of the British Antiques Dealers Association.