Art pottery is a term for pottery with artistic aspirations, made in relatively small quantities, mostly between about 1870 and 1930. Typically, sets of the usual tableware items are excluded from the term; instead the objects produced are mostly decorative vessels such as vases , jugs, bowls and the like which are sold singly. The term originated in the later 19th century, and is usually used only for pottery produced from that period onwards. It tends to be used for ceramics produced in factory conditions, but in relatively small quantities, using skilled workers, with at the least close supervision by a designer or some sort of artistic director. Studio pottery is a step up, supposed to be produced in even smaller quantities, with the hands-on participation of an artist-potter, who often performs all or most of the production stages. But the use of both terms can be elastic. Ceramic art is often a much wider term, covering all pottery that comes within the scope of art history , but "ceramic artist" is often used for hands-on artist potters in studio pottery.
60-623: The Ruskin Pottery was an English art pottery studio founded in 1898 by Edward R. Taylor , the first principal of both the Lincoln School of Art and the Birmingham School of Art , to be run by his son, William Howson Taylor , formerly a student there. It was named after the artist, writer and social thinker John Ruskin , as the Taylors agreed with, and followed the tenets of Ruskin. The pottery
120-547: A potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping (known as throwing) of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, and for applying incised decoration or rings of colour. Use of the potter's wheel became widespread throughout the Old World but was unknown in the Pre-Columbian New World , where pottery
180-533: A closer relationship between the design of a piece and its production process. Art pottery was part of the Arts and Crafts movement, and a reaction to the technically superb but over-ornamented wares made by the large European factories, especially in porcelain . Later art pottery represented the ceramic arm of the Aesthetic Movement and Art Nouveau . Many of the wares are earthenware or stoneware , and there
240-572: A decisive influence on many individuals who went on to become significant in American art pottery. There were also close links with amateur china painting , which had become a very popular hobby, especially for middle-class women, in the same decades. In London, the Regent Street jewellers Howell James & Co. became a leading showplace for both amateur and professional work, organizing exhibitions and competitions. The movement perhaps began in
300-433: A pot. Only a small range of vessels were fashioned on the tournette, suggesting that it was used by a limited number of potters. The introduction of the slow wheel increased the efficiency of hand-powered pottery production. In the mid to late 3rd millennium BC the fast wheel was developed, which operated on the flywheel principle. It utilised energy stored in the rotating mass of the heavy stone wheel itself to speed
360-509: A range of colours and unique 'fissured' glaze effects. Having exhibited at home and at international fine art exhibitions, the award of a "grand prize" in 1904 at the St Louis International Exhibition , gave them the recognition they needed. Further awards were gained at other international exhibitions, including Milan 1906 ; Christchurch, New Zealand, 1907 ; London 1908 ; Brussels 1910 ; Turin 1911 ; Ghent 1913 . When
420-499: A sculptor who died young in 1894, was also sculpture, including many faces and heads, often with grotesque expressions, but he made several conventional pots, often with thick unctuous ash glaze effects in the Japanese style. Other leading figures were Auguste Delaherche , Edmond Lachenal , Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat , a great creator of glazes, and Clément Massier . The large American-owned Limoges porcelain firm of Haviland & Co.
480-517: A very similar beginning as Japan. The history of Chinese pottery began in the Neolithic era about 4300 BC down to 2000 BC. Unlike Japan, which focused on production of everyday wares, China created mostly decorative pieces with few opportunities for industrialization and production of ceramic wares. Because China focused on decorative wares, most of their pottery was centered around porcelain instead of earthen wares seem almost everywhere else, and they used
540-423: A vessel and adding coils of clay then throwing again, pots may be made even taller, with the heat of a blowlamp being used to firm each thrown section before adding the next coil. Similarly, multiple sections may be thrown and combined to create large vessels. Large wheels and masses of clay can also allow for multiple people to work on a pot simultaneously, which can create very large ceramic pieces. This practice
600-547: A wheel into their work. Pottery can be identified in the Southwest of North American dating back to 150 CE and has been an important part of Native American culture for over 2,000 years. Historically Native Americans have been using the coiling method to achieve their decorative and functional pieces, and the technology to create an electric wheel did not show up until the arrival of Europeans. However, smaller turntables or slow wheels could have been used occasionally. The use of
660-641: A wider variety of shapes, including stemmed vessels, so wheel-thrown pottery can be distinguished from handmade. Potters could now produce many more pots per hour, a first step towards industrialization . Many modern scholars suggest that the first potter's wheel was first developed by the ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia . A stone potter's wheel found at the Sumerian city of Ur in modern-day Iraq has been dated to about 3129 BC, but fragments of wheel-thrown pottery of an even earlier date have been recovered in
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#1733086285469720-401: Is considered as "being the place of origin of the potter's wheel. It was here that the turntable shaft was lengthened about 3000 BC and a flywheel added. The flywheel was kicked and later was moved by pulling the edge with the left hand while forming the clay with the right. This led to the counterclockwise motion for the potter's wheel which is almost universal." Thus, the exact origin of
780-533: Is managed by Sandwell Museum Service. The site of the factory is now an industrial estate, "Ruskin Place" . A blue plaque marking the site, erected by the Smethwick Local History Society, was subsequently stolen. 52°30′09″N 1°59′34″W / 52.50257°N 1.99280°W / 52.50257; -1.99280 Art pottery The term implied both a progressive design style and also
840-457: Is often an interest in East Asian ceramics, especially historical periods when the individual craftsmen had been allowed a large role in the design and decoration. There is often great interest in ceramic glaze effects, including lustreware , and relatively less in painted decoration (still less in transfer printing ). Throwing pieces on the potter's wheel , which hardly played any part in
900-476: Is used in Jingdezhen, China, where 3 or more potters may work on one pot at the same time. There are a variety of methods to throwing, though almost all involve the following steps in some form: center the clay on the wheel, open a hole in the clay, creating a donut shaped ring of clay around the base of the pot, then raise or shape the walls to create the pots final shape. The specifics of these steps, including
960-568: The Rookwood Pottery Company , founded in 1880, most producers began making it after 1890 and many after 1900. Some were newly-established and other had been making other types of wares. Most of the potteries were forced out of business by the economic pressures of competition from commercial mass-production companies as well as the advent of World War I followed a decade later by the Great Depression . In continental Europe parts of
1020-857: The World's fairs the largest. America's first of these was the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, which "was a critical catalyst for the development of the American Art Pottery movement", both because American commercial potteries exerted themselves to improve the artistic quality of the products specially made for exhibition, and because American visitors were exposed to a wider range of European and Asian ceramics than hitherto. Doulton appears to have exhibited over 500 pieces of its Lambeth art studio stoneware and Lambeth Faience, and these as well as French " barbotine " and Japanese pieces had
1080-468: The faience manufacturing sector had managed to survive the onslaught of English creamwares and bone china , and increasingly cheap hard-paste porcelain from local factories, and many of these embraced the movement. In France, which was the most important continental producer, the famous Service Rousseau designs in Creil-Montereau faience (1867) were early examples of Japonisme , and somewhat in
1140-655: The famous Paris Metro entries ) but also designed ceramics, many for Sèvres. A generation later, the Mougin brothers emerged around 1900, and worked in Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles until the 1930s. In the Netherlands De Porceleyne Fles had been founded in Delft in 1653, but by 1840 was the only Delftware factory left in the city. After appointing Adolf Le Comte as designer in 1877, its products were shifted in
1200-406: The motor -driven wheel has become common in modern times, particularly with craft potters and educational institutions, although human-powered ones are still in use and are preferred by some studio potters . Social consequences that can arrive of these technological advancements include increased economic advancements in the sales of pottery created using the potter’s wheel and industrialization of
1260-568: The schools at Queen's Square , or at Lambeth ." Two of the biggest names, then and now, in the British art pottery scene, offer contrasting degrees of involvement in the actual production process. William De Morgan was not hands-on with the clay as a thrower, while at least three of the four Martin Brothers were personally engaged in production. They are now regarded as among the earliest makers of studio pottery , but that term had not been devised at
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#17330862854691320-718: The 1860s. Unlike many terms for styles or movements in art, the name appears to have come from the producers, and was used of their wares by several English manufacturers by the 1870s. In 1870 or 1871 Mintons , one of the large Staffordshire pottery factories, founded in 1793, who had successfully tried to keep up with innovation in design, opened their "Mintons Art Pottery Studio" in Kensington Gore , London. Very many art potteries were newly-established, especially in America, but in Europe many long-established ceramic manufacturers embraced
1380-407: The 1870s became involved in the design process of the firm. The Art pottery movement very largely used forms of earthenware and stoneware , sometimes revelling in showing the clay body, and sometimes smothering it in thick glazes. The many large European porcelain companies generally stood aloof from these developments, concentrating on tableware, and often struggling to throw off what had become
1440-512: The Aesthetic Movement, and overlapped with amateur china painting. Another group made wares with a rural, folk art , style, often in very small potteries; this perhaps survived the longest, and from the 20th century is often called "craft pottery". Another group was interested in advanced glaze effects, whether trying to recreate historic Asian ones such as sang de boeuf glaze (for example Bernard Moore ), or new experimental ones such as
1500-466: The French establishment when he was made art director of Sèvres porcelain in 1887. Several important figures from the next generation were trained by Deck. Ernest Chaplet was an artist and hands-on potter, mainly in stoneware, who later worked with Paul Gauguin , whose many ceramic sculptures cannot really be squeezed into the category of art pottery. Much of the ceramic output of Jean-Joseph Carriès ,
1560-567: The United States. American art pottery has many similarities, but some differences, with its European equivalents. The term is not often used outside the Western world, except in " folk art pottery", often used for some village-based mingei traditions in Japanese pottery . The movement was strongly linked with the fashion for national and international competitions and awards in the period, with
1620-502: The artist William Stephen Coleman , reported that the designers and decorators there worked segregated by sex, and was at pains to stress the position of the ladies: ... from twenty to twenty-five educated women, of good social position, employed without loss of dignity, and in an agreeable and profitable manner. All have received the necessary Art-instruction, either at the Central Training Schools at South Kensington , or at
1680-464: The best forms were designed by Jurriaan J. Kok and painted by Samuel Schellink , and in contrast the innovative, elegant and elongated shapes were a large part of the appeal. The large firm of Zsolnay in Budapest specialized in architectural ceramics, introducing new glazes and finishes, but was also very alert to new trends in decorative pottery, with an uninhibited approach to design and colour. From
1740-481: The ceramics processes. The potter’s wheel greatly increased the production rate of ceramics, which allowed for more products to be created. With the industrialization of ceramics in Japan, ceramics also lost some of its historical value, and some techniques and meanings of the ceramics were lost in the process. A skilled potter can quickly throw a vessel from up to 15 kg (30 lb) of clay. Alternatively, by throwing
1800-458: The clay of the base of the pot. This arrangement allowed the potter to rotate the vessel during construction, rather than walk around it to add coils of clay. The oldest forms of the potter's wheel (called tourneys or slow wheels ) were probably developed as an extension to this procedure. Tournettes, in use around 3500 BC in the Near East , were turned slowly by hand or by foot while coiling
1860-404: The deadening influence of Rococo and Neoclassical styles. In the 1870s most continued to produce an eclectic variety of revivalist styles, though sometimes experimenting with glazes, as at Meissen porcelain , which began to produce monochrome vases from 1883. The first major porcelain company to seriously change its styles was Royal Copenhagen , which made radical changes from 1883, when it
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1920-557: The direction of art pottery, though still mostly using the traditional hand-painted blue and white pottery style. In 1884 Theo Colenbrander , like Le Comte initially an architect, took over the Haagsche Plateelbakkerij, Rozenburg in The Hague , and was considerably more adventurous, but also with an emphasis on painting rather than adventurous shapes. Later they turned with success to Art Nouveau, mostly in porcelain. Most of
1980-447: The foot from side to side against the spinning hub is rather awkward. At some point , an alternative solution was invented that involved a crankshaft with a lever that converted up-and-down motion into rotary motion. In Japan the potter's wheel first showed by in the Asuka or Sueki period (552–710 CE) where wares were more sophisticated and complicated. In addition to the new technology of
2040-670: The large factories of the day, was often used, and many pieces were effectively unique, especially in their glazes, applied in ways that encouraged random effects. Compared to the production processes in larger factories, where each stage usually involved different workers, the same worker often took a piece through several stages of production, though studio pottery typically took this even further, and several makers of art pottery, if they became successful, drifted back towards conventional factory methods, as cheaper and allowing larger quantities to be made. The most significant countries producing art pottery were Britain and France, soon followed by
2100-465: The large porcelain makers began to move in similar directions, causing problems for the smaller art potteries. Art Nouveau produced an upsurge in adventurous art glass , rather to the detriment of pottery. The French artist Émile Gallé was rather typical, making ceramics early in his career, but largely abandoning them for glass by 1892 (when young he took over the family's factories making both). In European countries not mentioned above, art pottery
2160-506: The late 1860s until his death in 1900, it was led by Vilmos Zsolnay , son of the founder. Many of Zsolnay's designs had a strongly nationalistic element, drawing shapes from ancient archaeological wares, Islamic ones from the long Ottoman occupation, and contemporary peasant pottery. Ornament and colour were influenced by these and traditional Hungarian clothing and embroidery, both peasant and aristocratic. Vilmos Zsolnay's doughterss Julia and Teréz were collectors of all these, and from
2220-500: The most highly regarded of all, sang-de-boeuf and flambé glazes which produced a blood red effect. The sang-de-boeuf glazes were created using reduction of copper and iron oxides at high temperature. This was a difficult technique, first developed in China in the 13th century and reinvented by several art potters in Europe in the late 19th century. William Howson Taylor was one of the principal exponents of 'high fired' techniques, producing
2280-443: The motions of the hands, can vary from culture to culture, as well as from potter to potter. In most cultures, the wheel spins counterclockwise and the right hand is placed on the outside of the pot as it is thrown. Japanese pottery is thrown oppositely, with the wheel spinning clockwise and the right hand on the interior of the pot. However, modern wheels powered by electric motors often allow for rotation in either direction, allowing
2340-423: The movement, usually by establishing dedicated sections of their business, kept apart from their higher-volume wares. This was especially the case for large English firms who had become mainly associated with less glamorous utilitarian wares. Doulton & Co., later Royal Doulton , was hugely profitable from utilitarian stonewares , above all sewage and drain pipes, and able to experiment, establishing links with
2400-427: The nearby Lambeth School of Art . Doulton revived fine English stoneware, and raised its own profile; it is unclear whether the art wares of Lambeth ever made much profit. Maw & Co was, with Mintons, one of the main makers of decorative encaustic tiles , but launched "Art Pottery" lines by the 1880s, some by Walter Crane , who had been designing tiles for them since the 1870s. While women made up about half
2460-452: The opposite direction to others; after nearly 30 years at Sèvres he set up his own small studio in 1895, and in 1909 moved to teach and pot in America. Alexandre Bigot , originally a chemistry teacher, made some pottery himself, with individual glazes, but was mainly notable for his designs for Art Nouveau architectural ceramics, created by his own large firm. Hector Guimard was an Art Nouveau architect and designer, mainly in metal (including
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2520-621: The potential to rise, were better at the Doulton studios in London. The Doulton studios were unusual in this period in allowing the decorators, about half of them female, to sign or initial pieces, and several have acquired individual reputations, like the sisters Hannah and Florence Barlow . By 1895 the Doulton studios employed 345 female artists. A report in The Art Journal on a visit to Mintons' "Art-pottery studio at South Kensington ", run by
2580-514: The potter's wheel for the development of porcelain clay culture. Porcelain took off during the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when the iconic blue and white porcelain ceramics emerged. Several places in China mix traditional elements and methods with modern design and technologies. Native Americans have been creating ceramics by hand and in more modern eras started incorporating
2640-602: The potter's wheel: in jiggering, a shaped tool is slowly brought down onto the plastic clay body that has been placed on top of the rotating plaster mould . The jigger tool shapes one face, the mould the other. The term is specific to the shaping of flat ware , such as plates, whilst a similar technique, jolleying, refers to the production of hollow ware , such as cups. Prior to using a wheel all of these civilizations used techniques such as pinching, coiling, paddling, and shaping to create ceramic forms. In addition, several of these techniques continued to be used on pots on or off
2700-449: The process. This wheel was wound up and charged with energy by kicking, or pushing it around with a stick, providing angular momentum . The fast wheel enabled a new process of pottery-making to develop, called throwing , in which a lump of clay was placed centrally on the wheel and then squeezed, lifted and shaped as the wheel turned. The process tends to leave rings on the inside of the pot and can be used to create thinner-walled pieces and
2760-524: The same area. However, southeastern Europe and China have also been claimed as possible places of origin. A potter's wheel in western Ukraine , from the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture , has been dated to the middle of the 5th millennium BC, and is the oldest ever found, and which further precedes the earliest use of the potter's wheel in Mesopotamia by several hundred years. On the other hand, Egypt
2820-469: The spirit of art pottery, although the service was commissioned by a wholesaler from Félix Bracquemond , an established artist, and the manufacture contracted out. The earliest significant figure was Théodore Deck , who founded his faience works in 1856, and initially explored styles and techniques from Islamic pottery with great success. When Japonisme arrived in the 1870s he embraced this and other art pottery trends with enthusiasm, finally conquering
2880-689: The still radioactive orange uranium glazes. Then came another wave of hand-painting, but less realist, and more geometric and stylized. This style greatly influenced industrial wares after World War I. American pottery was made by some 200 studios and small factories across the country, with especially strong centres of production in Ohio (the Cowan , Lonhuda , Owens , Roseville , Rookwood , and Weller potteries) and Massachusetts (the Dedham , Grueby , Marblehead, and Paul Revere potteries). With some exceptions like
2940-413: The studio closed in 1935 the formulae for the glazes and all the pottery documentation were deliberately destroyed, so that the unique Ruskin products could never be replicated. A large collection of Ruskin Pottery is on public display at Wednesbury Museum and Art Gallery , Wednesbury , about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of the factory. The collection is owned by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and
3000-609: The time. Another major figure, Christopher Dresser , was a designer whose name is closely associated with the Linthorpe Art Pottery , but may never have actually visited the works in Yorkshire (now Teesside ); he also designed for Mintons (porcelain) and other potteries. Victoria Bergesen groups the wares into broad stylistic groups. Firstly came stonewares and earthenwares that were initially strongly influenced by historical styles. Then there were painted wares that related to
3060-498: The wheel is not wholly clear yet. In the Iron Age , the potter's wheel in common use had a turning platform about one metre (3 feet) over the floor, connected by a long axle to a heavy flywheel at ground level. This arrangement allowed the potter to keep the turning wheel rotating by kicking the flywheel with the foot, leaving both hands free for manipulating the vessel under construction. However, from an ergonomic standpoint, sweeping
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#17330862854693120-589: The wheel to decorate or create more rounded or symmetrical shapes. Most early ceramic ware was hand-built using a simple coiling technique in which clay was rolled into long threads that were then pinched and smoothed together to form the body of a vessel. In the coiling method of construction, all the energy required to form the main part of a piece is supplied indirectly by the hands of the potter. Early ceramics built by coiling were often placed on mats or large leaves to allow them to be worked more conveniently. The evidence of this lies in mat or leaf impressions left in
3180-509: The wheel, firing was also changed to a much higher temperature in a rudimentary kiln. The industrialization continued through the Nara period (710–794) and into the Heian, or Fujiwara, period (794–1185). With higher temperature firings, new glazes followed (green, yellowish brown, and white), in addition new styles and techniques of glazing emerged. Ceramic wares that emerged from China were processed with
3240-577: The workforce of the Stoke-on-Trent potteries in Staffordshire in the 20th century, they tended to be assistants to husbands or fathers, doing "coarse and degrading labour", often handling toxic materials. Women could not be apprenticed, and men maintained control of higher-skilled and lucrative positions. There were some exceptions such as Daisy Makeig-Jones , who successfully designed the "Fairyland Lustre" pottery series for Wedgwood. Conditions, and
3300-435: Was bought by Aluminia , an earthenware company. Arnold Krog , an architect under 30 with no practical experience of the industry, was made artistic director the next year, and rapidly shifted designs in the same directions art pottery was exploring, commissioning many painters to design for the factory. Japanese influences were initially very strong. The new wares soon won prizes at various international exhibitions, and most of
3360-476: Was handmade by methods that included coiling and beating. A potter's wheel may occasionally be referred to as a "potter's lathe ". However, that term is better used for another kind of machine that is used for a different shaping process, turning , similar to that used for shaping of metal and wooden articles. The pottery wheel is an important component to create arts and craft products. The techniques of jiggering and jolleying can be seen as extensions of
3420-487: Was important in encouraging new styles, with much production being exported. Their stand at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition was one of the important influences there on later American pottery, especially in its barbotine painted wares. These, thickly painted with slip , allowed similar effects to the Impressionist paintings being produced in the same period. The glaze specialist Taxile Doat moved in
3480-517: Was situated at 173-174 Oldbury Road, Smethwick , then in Staffordshire (now part of Sandwell , in the West Midlands county). The pottery produced was notable for the innovative glazes used on a range of brightly coloured pots, vases, buttons, bowls, tea services and jewellery. The ceramic glazes devised by William Howson Taylor included misty soufflé glazes, ice crystal effect glazes - 'crystalline', lustre glazes resembling metallic finishes, and
3540-412: Was slow to develop, and by the 1890s all the large porcelain factories in Europe were at least beginning to commission designs in Art Nouveau and other styles, tending to suppress the development of smaller potteries. The Blaue Rispe tableware pattern by Richard Riemerschmid for Meissen is an example – this was not popular on first launch, but was revived much later. Max Laeuger , mainly an architect,
3600-533: Was the only very significant 19th-century German art potter, as a designer only, and in an Art Nouveau style from the late 1890s. To a large extent, small art potteries after Art Nouveau are called studio pottery , and began exploring new styles and imperatives, although many potteries continued to make pottery in the old spirit until at least World War II, especially in America. Just general books are given here; there are also large numbers of books on individual potteries. Potter%27s wheel In pottery ,
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