Rookwood Art Pottery
The Rookwood Art Pottery was founded in 1880 by Maria
Longworth Nichols as a means to market the products of
her hobby of painting blank pottery forms. Eventually,
she built her own kiln after years of experimenting with
glazes, decorating techniques, and kiln temperatures. Her
chemists and artists were able to create exceptional glazes
and colors that surpassed anything previously available on
the mass market.
Rookwood’s production covered many different design eras
– each with its own defining characteristics. As with any
successful enterprise, changes were constantly being planned
for and accomplished.
Done in relief in natural colored clay, the earliest era designs
stamped, carved or gilded on purchased green ware. Their
colors were gray, olive green, sage or pink and could be
generally termed as non-descript. These early production
pieces are generally of interest to collectors with a historical
bent and not to those who collect the very special decorated
and glazed later production pieces.
The next period of production was one in which the glazes
were a deep red, orange or gold over dark brown an fired to
create a very glossy finish. Frequently the images painted on
the ware were flowers or leaves. Some of the flowers that
appeared were wild roses, poppies, carnations, daffodils,
dogwood or dandelions. Other images were also used with
this particular glaze. Those images were of certain historical
figures including portraits of Indians.
Other periods of production saw the introduction of other
glazes and designs – matt glaze, sea green, and vellum
glazes and iris and tiger eye designs among others. The
video you are being invited to watch features American Indians
on Rookwood Pottery from the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
