NILOAK POTTERY

THE NILOAK POTTERY OF BENTON

BEGINNINGS

The presence of several utilitarian potteries in the 1890s indicated that

stoneware was the chief industry in Benton. Charles Dean "Bullet" Hyten, a

second-generation Arkansas potter, grew up in the world of jug and crockery

manufacturing, spending his childhood days around Benton's many pottery

shops. By 1897, Hyten, along with his brothers, operated a family business

known as Hyten Bros. Pottery. By 1904, Hyten had sole ownership of the

company. Now known as Eagle Pottery, this became the "largest pottery ware

business" in the Benton area.

In 1909, former Ouachita Pottery employee Arthur Dovey came to Benton to

help Hyten develop a new pottery operation. Whether inspired to create

artistic wares, or desiring to keep his business solvent as he faced

decreasing demand for his utilitarian wares, Hyten established a

professional relationship with Dovey to initiate a new type of art pottery

that had no rival in the world.

While Dovey contributed technical and artistic abilities, especially his

knowledge of throwing swirl, Hyten utilized his local business connections

"to establish a plant for the manufacture of art pottery." This was the

ideal partnership of industry and tradition to create art. Eagle Pottery

began production in January 1910. Within two months they had a popular new

product known as Niloak, which is kaolin (a high-grade clay) spelled

backward.

As a result of the large stoneware industry in Benton, Hyten had a large

supply of skilled workers already in the area. Over twenty persons were

identified as clay-workers. Some of the people who worked (or likely worked)

at the company included: George E. Wilbur, Alfred E. Wilbur, J. E. Johnson,

J. Rowland, Colonel McNeil and his sons Romine and Joshua, Charles Glass,

Matt C. Carlton, Aliva Carlton, Fred Johnson, Paul Hyten, and Frank I. Long.

These clay-workers contributed greatly to the development of the swirl

concept early on, but also helped set the foundation that Niloak built upon

for the next 40 years.

EXTERIOR GLAZE

The rarest Missionware items still in existence have an exterior glaze and

were probably Niloak Pottery's nod to Rookwood Pottery's popular "Standard"

glaze. This decorative technique consisted of slip-painted effects protected

by a glossy exterior glaze. Therefore Niloak's "Standard" glaze like

Missionware, was typical of the art pottery commercially produced at

Rookwood. It is possible that Dovey, knowledgeable about Rookwood's glaze,

sought to create a similar look to compete with Rookwood. Competition is

also evident in the Niloak Company references where they boasted of hiring

former Rookwood employees.

Long thought to be experimental, fewer than a dozen exterior glazed pieces

are known to exist. Production was extremely limited. Historians do not know

whether the halt in production resulted from the product's poor market

record, or because the exterior glaze darkened and obscured the color

swirls, leaving little aesthetic value to the product. Since matte finishes

were popular with buyers from 1900 on, Niloak probably saw the unglazed

satin-like exterior as a more marketable line and stopped production of

exterior glazes.

Missionware was first offered for sale at the Bush Drug and Jewelry

Company of Benton; it quickly became popular. Hyten established a business

relationship with Frederick W. Sanders, who operated Sanders & Company and

traded in glassware, china, and pottery. By 1910, the relationship had grown

and Sanders & Company distributed Niloak pottery outside of Benton.

While Hyten often promoted the notion the clay colors were natural, this

was advertising hype gradually accepted as fact. The actual use of naturally

colored clays was limited; if used at all, this process occurred in

Missionware's earliest pieces and only with cream, gray, and brown colors.

The "process of coloring and mixing the clay [was] the secret of the

manufacturer," but the Missionware patent stated that cobalt, ferric, and

chromic oxides were introduced to create the popular blue, red, and gray

colors.

ART CONCEPT

Missionware was different from typical American art pottery. The company

used colored clays, mixed and thrown together, to make art objects. The

Missionware designation came from the 1913 Clay-Worker, which noted that

Niloak Pottery was "real art, according to the laws of nature . . . ," with

"lasting merit." Its "decorative ornaments are ingrain[ed] through the

entire thickness of the article . . . ." The publication suggested that

other art potteries' decorations were shallow surface effects.

Niloak Pottery workers incorporated colored clays into one piece-a

difficult task due to each color's different shrinking, drying and firing

rates. Missionware's surface designs provided grace to classically-shaped

vessels, thereby earning the Arts and Crafts connotation and the Missionware

label. Artistic effects included using one color, shades of one color, and

two colors to create a pleasing appearance. With clean lines and simple,

classical shapes, Niloak's Missionware not only defines Arkansas art

pottery, but it provides a rare but successful variant to the more widely

accepted notions of American art pottery.

After 1910, the Missionware line became much more standardized. Color

schemes were limited, and repeated use of brown, gray, blue, red, and white

together became the norm. New and redesigned shapes quickly became

manufacturing standards. As the pottery grew in popularity, the company

moved toward complete industrialization. Niloak Pottery discarded

individuality and artistic expression as they sought to meet the increasing

demands of 1920s consumers. Unfortunately, these steps standardized

Missionware manufacture, thus ending the line's concept as true art pottery.

Throughout the 1920s, Niloak concentrated on marketing their pieces to

larger department stores and art shops coast to coast. Hyten, with total

faith in the Missionware line, mortgaged his assets and built the company's

Military Road showroom in 1929. The onset of the Great Depression caused

serious economic trouble, causing Missionware sales to fall. Determined to

continue producing true art pottery, Hyten began to manufacture cheaper

ceramics to remain in business. This new line was known as Hywood Art

Pottery.

HYWOOD ART POTTERY

In 1931, ceramist Stoin M. Stoin, a Bulgarian and former employee of

Zanesville, Ohio's Weller Pottery, and Rudolph "Rudy" Ganz, a skilled

sculptor and mold maker from Baden, Germany, were hired to create Hywood Art

Pottery. Stoin developed the Hywood line, since he knew the traditional art

pottery methodologies. Comparisons of Hywood Art Pottery and Weller Pottery

catalogs show that both companies used similar shapes, mostly hand-thrown,

and similar glazes. Hywood production began in 1931 and lasted until early

1932, when Stoin left the company.

In May 1932, Hyten, with help from Paul Cox, the former Ouachita Pottery

employee, hired Howard S. Lewis to develop new glazes for a new pottery

line, which was named Hywood by Niloak in an attempt to connect the Hywood

line to the well-known Niloak name. For both Hywood lines, glazes included

mottles, drips and oversprays. Some glaze names carried over from Hywood Art

Pottery to the Hywood by Niloak lines, resulting in the creation of Ozark

Dawn I and Peacock Blue I by Stoin, and Ozark Dawn II and Peacock Blue II by

Lewis. Lewis also developed other glazes for Hywood, including Ozark Blue,

Maroon, Ivory, and Green and Tan Matte.

In a renewed effort to cut costs and increase production, Ganz quickly

completed nearly two hundred mold designs for the Hywood by Niloak line.

Despite these modernization efforts, the pottery did not lose all elements

of individual artistry, as the Modernistic (or Art Moderne) movement soon

brought Art Deco and Streamline influences to Niloak Pottery. The company

permanently ceased art pottery manufacturing in the mid-1930s to concentrate

on making inexpensive, mass-produced pottery and novelty wares for gift and

tourist shops.

During World War II, Niloak Pottery production was limited due to material

shortages, although military contracts enabled the company to manufacture

ceramic mugs and clay pigeons for training anti-aircraft gunners. After the

war, the company resumed castware manufacture, but sales faltered toward the

end of 1946. Winburn Tile Company, then a branch of the Mosaic Tile Company

of Zanesville, Ohio, was created in 1947 from the remains of the Niloak

Pottery Company. Winburn Tile, with a history of over 110 years in ceramic

manufacturing, continues as a viable tile manufacturing business in Arkansas

today.