This groovy “Clouds & Rainbow” or “Rainbow Dream” teapot from an earlier QBO sale was designed by Taffy Dahl in 1978 for Vandor Imports of San Francisco and was made in Japan. It originally had a matching creamer and sugar bowl. A big success, the teapots were followed by demitasse cups and 8 oz teacups in 1980. The cups and saucers weren’t molded as awkward-to-drink-from clouds, instead turquoise blue skies with white clouds were printed on the saucers and on some versions of the cups, which of course DID have 3-D rainbow handles. The handles of the demitasse cups could only fit the 3 primary colors – red, yellow and blue, but in a stroke of sophistication the cobalt blue of the handle was distinct from the turquoise blue of the cup.
Taffy Dahl grew up in Northern California, one of seven children. A designer of whimsical ceramics for Vandor Imports such as penguin salt & pepper shakers, flamingo napkin rings and more, when this tea set came out Dahl was already on her way to what would become her life’s work and it was not cute mugs. In 1976 she joined with husband Donald Kaufman of Donald Kaufman Color to create sophisticated, distinctive architectural paints. The company partnered with many architects and is still going strong; to date they’ve mixed over 30,000 custom colors! The married designers also co-authored two books, “Color: Natural Palettes for Painted Rooms” in 1992, and “Color and Light: Luminous Atmospheres for Painted Rooms” in 1999.
Vandor Imports was founded in San Francisco by Ted van Doorn, who compressed his Dutch last name to make the company’s. For 30 years he employed a stable of designers, many of them women, and contracted with manufactures in Japan to produce pop-art home decor. A husband, father, and sociable man-about-town, it appeared he led an ordinary life; it wasn’t until his death that his friends learned otherwise when his son published his father’s unfinished memoir. Van Doorn had grown up in Japan, son of a Japanese mother and Dutch father. As an infant he survived the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 which killed 140,000 people, including his mother and a brother; a sister carried him to Kyoto where they were only reunited with surviving family months later. A young man with Japanese but not Dutch citizenship, he was conscripted into the Japanese Army during WWII where his mixed ancestry and tall stature made him an object of suspicion and abuse. He served in Manchuria where he was captured by the Russians and sent to a Siberian gulag. At the end of the war, he gambled big and renounced his Japanese citizenship. An impoverished man without a country, he made his way to America and San Francisco as a refugee where through sheer desperation and drive he was eventually able to start his own business; a business making happy, lighthearted home decor and tea sets.
Some sellers use the word “Pride” when describing these tea sets so if you’re wondering if they have anything to do with the rainbow Gay Pride flag the answer is no, but indirectly yes, they were water drawn from the same well. Both teapot and flag were born of 1978 San Francisco, a place and time saturated in counter-culture art and music. The Pride flag was designed by artist Gilbert Baker at the request of the first openly gay S.F. City Supervisor Harvey Milk for the S.F. Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade in 1978. Inspired by the World Peace Association’s 5-color Brotherhood Flag from the 1930s and the Rolling Stones 1967 hippie anthem “She’s a Rainbow”, Baker had to hand-dye and sew the first pride flags; the rainbow after the storm. So if you want to give an awesome Pride teapot to a gay friend, that’s great, and if you want to give an old hippy a trippy coffee mug, that’s great, too. We’ve got something for everyone!
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!