Arkansas Art Pottery

 

INTRODUCTION

by David Edwin Gifford

Arkansas art pottery was not a local development since Ouachita Pottery of

Hot Springs, Niloak Pottery of Benton, and Camark Pottery of Camden relied

heavily on experienced potters, ceramists, designers, and artisans from

outside the state, especially from Ohio. A network of itinerant potters

provided a continuous national connection that brought much of Arkansas's

art pottery into the mainstream of the American art pottery movement.

Although Arkansas had an abundance of clay, without these experienced

clayworkers, Arkansas's potters might never have been more than suppliers of

utilitarian ware for local and regional markets. Because these companies'

efforts resulted in commercially viable artistic wares with some

originality, their history deserves examination in order to understand

ceramic art in America.

Art pottery basically refers to the degree of individual attention given a

specific piece and to what extent that work was produced for the sake of art

and decoration. The American art pottery movement began with the 1876

Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where American potters showcased their

wares. Prior to this time, most decorative art pottery was imported from

England. Scholars continue to debate whether American art pottery production

ceased in the 1920s or if it continued to the present. The difficulty lies

in the changing interpretation of what constitutes art pottery. Some

scholars argue that art pottery ceased due to the implementation of mass

production techniques, which replaced "artistic originality and creative

expression" with "quantity production and ease of manufacture." Other

historians insist that industrial effects were in place from the start and

that mass production had not necessarily negated artistic intent. This

exhibit suggests that the art pottery movement, using evidence of continuity

and "stylistic traditions," did not cease simply because of

industrialization.

The Arts and Crafts movement made a major impact on all decorative arts,

including ceramic wares, and was very influential in the development of art

pottery. Arkansans, like the rest of the country, were exposed to the

American Arts and Crafts and the developing art pottery movements through

different medium. In 1903, the Arkansas Federation of Women's Clubs promoted

one of the major Craftsman tenets, urging members to "sacrifice those things

in our home which we 'do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.'

Within a couple of years, Arkansas art pottery companies, with help from

out-of-state pottery employees such as Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati and

other clay industries in Ohio, would be established and would begin making

an important contribution to the American Art Pottery movement.

Many in-state business and civic organizational leaders promoted

Arkansas's economic advantages and its many wonders, specifically its

mineral wealth, citing reports on the extent of Arkansas clay deposits "that

would truly surprise even the most enthusiastic believers in our mineral

wealth as well as command the admiration of the world." These clays were

"close to transportation, with unlimited fuel, coal, and wood;" advertisers

felt certain that "a great [clay] industry was sure to build up in the near

future and the manufacturing of porcelain [would] make our state famous."

While advertisers' claims that Arkansas was well supplied with excellent

clays for pottery manufacture might have been exaggerated, the state did

have workable clays already being used by many utilitarian ware

manufacturers. With investors and mineralogists investigating and developing

clay deposits throughout the American South, the creation of an Arkansas

ceramic industry seemed inevitable. By the 1900s, Newcomb Pottery in

Louisiana and George Ohr Pottery in Mississippi had begun. During the next

three decades, three Arkansas companies catapulted the state into the

national pottery movement, ultimately marking a unique and special place in

American material culture for Arkansas pottery.

The Arts and Crafts movement answered another need beside the desire for

beautiful things-it returned decorative arts to the realm of hand-made,

American goods. The rise of the Machine Age had created a backlash against

industrialization. It was, however, difficult for pottery manufacturers to

completely avoid industrial effects, since "art pottery already at an early

stage was the result of artists, artisans, and industrialists working in

collaboration." While hand-made goods were still valued, mass production

techniques became increasingly common with pre-1920 molded designs and

post-1920 hand-painted wares. The growth of mass production in the art

pottery movement resulted in less emphasis on artistic merit and more on

"some indication of being the product of aesthetic intent not to fall purely

in the category of functional or novelty ware . . . ." With the elements of

art, tradition, and industry, Ouachita Pottery, Niloak Pottery, and Camark

Pottery production, manufactured in Arkansas, had aesthetic intent and

extended beyond 1930, and therefore justifies the establishment of a new

timeline for the American art pottery movement.

Copyright David Edwin Gifford 2007

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