Ask a museum curator or ceramics expert where the world's best pottery comes from, and you're likely to get Cincinnati as your answer. For eight decades the city was home to the Rookwood Pottery factory, which produced decorative pottery of such stunning elegance and beauty that the name is still known across the globe over 40 years after the business closed its doors. So what makes this pottery so special?
Anita J. Ellis is the Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Decorative Arts at the Cincinnati Art Museum. She has lectured extensively throughout the United States, serves on the Board of Trustees for The American Ceramic Circle, and is the author of Rookwood Pottery: The Glaze Lines, published in 1995. Here she explains why Rookwood Pottery stands head and shoulders above the rest:
- A Cincinnati original.
Rookwood Pottery, founded by Marie Longworth Nichols, began producing pieces in Cincinnati in 1880. It had run a glorious span of almost a hundred years, turning out one impressive design after another.
- Form over function.
According to Ellis, Rookwood artists considered the artistic content of a piece to be more important that the usefulness, so many of the factory's pieces are purely decorative.
- Famous glazes.
Among Rookwood's claims to fame are the glazes that it produced. Rookwood used the secret technique of underglaze slip decoration, allowing artists to paint a decoration under a piece's glaze.
- In a class by itself.
In Ellis' mind, no American pottery manufacturer comes close to the quality of Rookwood, which was famous for it's attention to detail and high standards.
- Known around the world.
Rookwood's fame extended far beyond the city of Cincinnati and even the US, and continues to have an international reputation as some of the finest art pottery in the world.
For more information about Rookwood Pottery, check out the following organizations or websites:
Cincinnati Art Museum
www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org
Just Art Pottery: About Rookwood Pottery
www.justartpottery.com/collectors_pottery
Collectics Antiques & Collectibles: History of Rookwood Pottery
www.collectics.com/education_rookwood
Arts & Crafts Movement: Rookwood Pottery
anc.gray-cells.com
North Harrison High School Visual Arts Department: Rookwood Pottery
nhcs.k12.in.us/staff/pbortka/Rookwood
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