‘Art Pottery In America’ In Fourth Edition

BOOK REVIEW

A Weller vase, “Etched Matt,” is 5 1/2” tall. This piece was made in light green.

The 4th edition of Art Pottery of America, by Lucile Henzke, is now available from Schiffer Publishing. The text is arranged alphabetically by pottery name, and includes historical data, photographs of each pottery’s work, identifying marks and updated values.

Many of the companies are very well known to collectors, and have one or more reference books devoted to just their wares. McCoy, Roseville, Rookwood and Weller are a few of these, and these are covered thoroughly in this book.

It is more valuable, however, for information on those potteries that are lesser known, and for which it is harder to find information. In this group are included such potteries as A. Radford and Company (1891-1912, which moved several times among Ohio and Virginia cities; Tiffany Pottery (1905-1918), not as well known as the art glass made by its founder, Louis Comfort Tiffany; the Imperial Porcelain Corporation (1946-1960), located in Ohio and producer of cartoon characters called the “Blue Ridge Mountain Boys”; and Jugtown Pottery of North Carolina, founded in the 1920s and still operating at the time the original text was written in the 1980s.

It should be noted that this is not a comprehensive work of all American art potteries, since there is almost no inclusion of the many potteries existing on the West Coast in the mid-1900s, (with the exception of the Indian pottery produced by Maria and the San Ildefonso pueblo in New Mexico and Vernon Kilns in California.) However, it is a valuable resource for those existing in the eastern part of the United States.

Most photographs are in black and white, with several pages of color plates in the center of the book, giving at least one example of most potteries’ wares in color. It is important to note that values have been updated, and in this respect, many are lowered to more accurately reflect today’s marketplace. (This is not something that collectors appreciate, of course; I found several different examples of pieces I own, and for which I paid more than the current value. However, that’s what has happened in today’s collecting world.)

The 4th edition of Art Pottery of America (ISBN: 978-0-7643-2879-4), hardback, is priced at $45. Check with your local bookseller or contact Schiffer Publishing, 4880 Lower Valley Rd., Atglen, PA 19310; online at www.schifferbooks.com.

Donna Miller

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Before Catalogs, The Package Sold The Seeds

BOOK REVIEW

Seed Art, The Package made Me Buy It, by Irwin Richman, is a colorful look at a mostly unrecognized form of art. Actually, the title is somewhat misleading, as the book contains much more than just the artwork featured on the packages of seeds. It also includes examples of some of the art used to promote flower sales as far back as the 1800s, and a few pictures of botanical illustrations dating much farther back than that.

By the 1800s, salesmen, or “flower agents” as they were called, carried sample color plates from place to place, to aid in selling flowers. Some were hand-tinted, usually as a cottage industry, in the same way that Currier & Ives prints were colored. Other plates were made from stencils, with details filled in by hand. Regardless of the technique, the plates were simple and colorful, an interesting form of American folk art.

Beginning in the 1850s, commercial sample books began to be printed. These evolved over time, as printing processes developed, to the nursery catalogs which avid gardeners still look forward to today.

Seeds themselves were also advertised for sale well before the Revolutionary War. The author quotes an ad from the 1719 edition of the Boston Gazette:

“Garden Seeds. – Fresh Garden Seeds of all Sorts, lately imported from London, to be sold by Evan Davies, Gardener, at his house over against the Powder House I Boston; Also English Sparrowgrass Roots, Carnation Layers Dutch Gooseberry and Current bushes.”

The Shakers in this country, in 1812, are credited with the practice of putting small quantities of seeds in packets. Shaker wagons went from village to village, where they were left at the general stores to be sold for a 25% commission. The idea of packaging seeds quickly caught on, and by the end of the Civil War, large-scale commercial growers were mailing out thousands of seed catalogs each year, produced by the new printing process of chromolithography. Unfortunately, few of these early catalogs survive – the illustrations were so colorful and decorative that most were cut up for their pictures!

A very thorough discussion of the development of the art work used in marketing seeds is covered in the book. The hundreds of photographs are divided into two groups. The first is “A Gallery of Seed Catalog Illustrations”; the second is “A Gallery of Seed Packets.” A separate small section features the work of Charles F. McCutcheon, one of the foremost illustrators of flower art.

Nearly 500 photographs illustrate Seed Art, The Package Made Me Buy It (ISBN: 978-0-7643-2819-0). It is available from Schiffer Publishing for $29.95. Check with your local bookseller or contact Schiffer Publishing online at www.schifferbooks.com

Donna Miller

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