Fiesta Pitcher

About Homer Laughlin China Company: The Homer Laughlin firm was founded in 1871 in Newell, West Virginia by the two brothers, Shakespeare and Homer Laughlin. A long-lived pottery, it survived two world wars and continued until 2020, when it was sold to Steelite, a British tableware manufacturer. Though Homer Laughlin China produced art pottery in its earlier days, it is best known for its Fiesta line, a brightly-colored Art Deco-styled set of tableware that was designed by the noted ceramicist, Frederick Hurten Rhead. Rhead was Homer Laughlin's art director from 1927 until his death in 1942. Fiesta ware is still produced by Fiesta Tableware Company, a division of Steelite. The New York Times called Fiesta “the most collected brand of china in the United States” (Alexander 2002). Homer Laughlin China Company was known for many dinnerware designs and also produced commemorative plates and art pottery vases.

(Alexander, Kelly, 2002.“The Way We Live Now”. The New York Times, December 1.)

About Fiesta Ware and Frederick Hurten Rhead: Frederick Hurten Rhead was born to a ceramics family in Staffordshire, England and emigrated to the United States in 1902 at age 22. He held many positions, working for William P. Jervis at the Vance/Avon Faience Company, Weller Pottery, Rosedale Pottery, and Jervis Pottery, until appointed instructor at the experimental University City Pottery in St. Louis in 1909. Two years later, he joined Arequipa Pottery in California and stayed for two years before organizing Pottery of the Camarata, incorporated as Rhead Pottery, in Santa Barbara in 1914 (Kovel and Kovel1993:158). His refined, simplified designs inspired other potters and became emblematic of the Arts and Crafts movement. Rhead was responsible for designs and glazing, and he assigned throwing to two wheel experts; decoration was also sometimes assigned to other artists. Rhead was inspired by ancient Chinese pottery and the Art Nouveau Movement and often created inlaid and incised designs using scarab, peacock, and landscape scenes (Evans 1987:236). Rhead won a gold medal at the San Diego Exposition of 1915, but his work was not financially successful, and Rhead Pottery closed in 1917. He then returned to Zanesville, Ohio, where he worked at the American Encaustic Tiling Company for ten years and in 1927 became the art director for Homer Laughlin China Company in Newell, West Virginia. With that company, he designed his famous Art Deco Fiesta Ware china line in the 1930s. He stayed there until his death in 1942.

(Evans, Paul, 1987. Art Pottery of the United States. New York: Feingold and Lewis Publishing Corp.; Kovel, Ralph and Terry Kovel, 1993. Kovels’ American Art Pottery: The Collector’s Guide to Makers, Marks and Factory Histories. New York: Crown Publishers.)

About the Object:

Fiesta "Disk Pitcher"; white-bodied, molded , covered with bright Yellow glaze. Original color.

Currently not on view