American art pottery

American art pottery (sometimes capitalized) refers to aesthetically distinctive hand-made ceramics in earthenware and stoneware from the period 1870-1930. Ranging from tall vases to tiles, the work features original designs, simplified shapes, and experimental glazes and painting techniques. Stylistically, most of this work is affiliated with the modernizing Arts and Crafts (1880-1910), Art Nouveau (1890–1910), or Art Deco (1920s) movements. Art pottery was made by some 200 studios and small factories across the country, with especially strong centers of production in Ohio (the Cowan, Lonhuda, Roseville, Rookwood, and Weller potteries) and Massachusetts (the Dedham, Grueby, Marblehead, and Paul Revere potteries). 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.

The American art pottery movement is a development from a tradition of individual potters making utilitarian earthenware and stoneware vessels for local use that dates back to the Colonial period. It was shaped to differing degrees in different geographical locations by the potters' appreciation for Native American pottery traditions, the Japonism vogue, and modernist aesthetics. Influential figures in American art pottery include Frederick Hurten Rhead, who worked with several different art potteries, and Maria Longworth Nichols, whose Rookwood Pottery produced what is today considered some of the very best American art pottery.

The earliest examples of American art pottery often follow a Victorian aesthetic and feature highly detailed representational subjects such as portraits of Native Americans painted across a muted background. Later types are more likely to feature designs that are graphic, linear, and abstract, in line with the aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco movements. Flowers and animals like Rookwood's eponymous rook remained popular subjects for decorations throughout the period. Some pieces have three-dimensional features, such as designs that are incised into the surface rather than painted on top, or raised elements like slip-trailed patterns or low-relief sculptures.

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