Grueby Vase

About the Arts and Crafts Movement:

Beginning in England in the early 1880s, the Arts and Crafts movement spread across the United States and Europe by the late 1880s. It celebrated the importance of beauty in everyday objects and urged a reconnection to nearby nature. The movement resisted the way industrial mass production undermined artisan crafts and was inspired by the ideas of artisan William Morris and writer John Ruskin. Valuing hand-made objects using traditional materials, it was known for a color palette of earth tones. Its artistic principles replaced realistic, colorful, and three-dimensional designs with more abstract and simplified forms using subdued tones. Stylized plant forms and matte glazes echoed a shift to quiet restraint in household décor. The Arts and Crafts movement also embraced social ideals, including respect for skilled hand labor and concern for the quality of producers’ lives. The movement struggled with the tension between the cost of beautiful crafts and the limited number of households able to afford them. Some potters relied on practical products such as drain tiles to boost income or supported themselves with teaching or publications. Arts and Crafts influence extended to other endeavors, including furniture, such as Stickley’s Mission Style, and architecture, such as the Arts and Crafts bungalow, built widely across the United States. American Arts and Crafts pottery flourished between 1880 and the first World War, though several potteries continued in successful operation into the later 20^th^ century.

About Grueby Pottery: William Grueby (1867-1925), a member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, began producing bricks, tiles, and architectural terra cotta in 1890 and founded his Grueby Faience Company in 1894 in Revere, Massachusetts. The firm expanded into art pottery in 1897 and was quickly successful, winning exhibition medals at World’s Fairs in Paris and St. Petersburg and the Grand Prize in St. Louis in 1904. A subdued, matte green glaze became the hallmark of the company’s art pottery line and an iconic example of Arts and Crafts design. Grueby work was also distinguished by its forms—inspired by the French Art Nouveau potter, Auguste Delaherche, and the company marketed over a hundred items, from “small cabinet bits to great jars over three feet high” (Kovel and Kovel 1993:60). Hand thrown on the wheel, Grueby pottery was noted for an extensive range of novel matte glazes developed by William Grueby himself. Decoration was applied under the supervision of the designers by young women trained in local Boston art schools. Commonly, plant motifs were applied in a clay relief, in highly stylized designs. Paris dealer Samuel Bing promoted Grueby’s pottery as part of European Art Nouveau, and Grueby pottery was used for Tiffany lamp bases in the United States. Grueby Pottery also gained popularity through being displayed and sold with Gustav Stickley’s Arts and Crafts furniture. Grueby art pottery ended in 1911, though architectural tile production continued in a related firm for several more years. Grueby’s work was very influential but was ultimately unable to compete with firms that mass-produced similar styles at lower cost.

(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:

Tall, thrown Art Pottery vase with raised ornament added to the surface in the form of a lotus pattern from the base to the shoulder. The matte glaze is characteristic Grueby green, described as "cucumber" or "water melon rind." The glaze breaks on the raised edges of the relief to reveal the pale body. Interior glazed in brown and green.

Grueby’s architectural moldings and tiles were made from a robust type of clay obtained from New Jersey and Martha’s Vineyard, and he used the same material for the pottery vessels. Consequently, this monumental vase is heavy, but stable, and its sturdiness affirms the handmade characteristics of Grueby wares. A strong tactile quality in the matt glaze that rolls over the surface of the vase refers us to the organic world of plant and vegetable, and at the turn of the twentieth century consumers found these qualities of harmony in form and surface immensely appealing. However, Grueby’s pots were expensive, and like most of the products of the Arts and Crafts movement, only affluent members of society could purchase these items for their homes.