Author Description

"At the turn of the century, Americans were infatuated with the concept of "Arts & Crafts" pottery. Professional artisans and amateur ceramists across the country, many of them women, sought to create works that were both beautiful and functional. Across the continent from New England's Grueby and Marblehead potteries to Cincinnati's famed Rookwood Pottery, from Newcomb College in New Orleans to the Van Briggle Pottery of Colorado Springs, Americans responded to William Morris' dictum: "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." Proponents of the movement responded to the crassness of mechanized society by insisting on "Beauty in common things." Where once work had been viewed in a negative light - as the Old Testament curse laid upon Adam and Eve - now manual labor was seen as something positive and having redemptive value. "Joy in one's labor" became a noble maxim to live by, and beauty was measured in terms of the worker's personal happiness. The Arts and Crafts movement appealed to right-minded members of society who wished to live in an environment that was elevated both morally and aesthetically. This publication brings together some one hundred and twenty nine vases of great rarity and exquisite beauty that represent the best of American Arts and Crafts pottery. Owned by the Two Red Roses Foundation of Palm Harbor, Florida, they exemplify the new sense of "sobriety and restraint" which characterized this period. Authors Jonathan Clancy and Martin Eidelberg explore how these different potteries responded to the new idealism of their age and to the aesthetic and social demands that were being put on art"--Jacket