The Ceramic Career of M. Louise McLaughlin

By Anita J. Ellis, Published by Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 2003, 32 color plates, 62 b/w figures, appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 243 pages, paper $24.95, cloth $49.95

Reviewed By: BY RALPH DRAKE


How many American ceramists are the subject of scholarly research into their lives or careers? In this important new book Anita J. Ellis delineates the career of M. Louise McLaughlin, a crusading American ceramist. Anita Ellis does this by placing both life and career within the context of ceramic greatness for which Cincinnati, Ohio is now known. That the career of M. Louise McLaughlin influenced ceramic art history is strongly reinforced by the book under review. Both author and publisher, Ohio University Press, are to be commended.
M. Louise McLaughlin (1847-1939) lived through a remarkable and turbulent period in American history, from the defining Pre-Civil War conditions to the initial phases of World War II. She also lived and was educated in the Queen City (Cincinnati), which would become an important global center for art pottery. At the School of Design, teacher Benn Pitt-man appears to have had a lasting influence on McLaughlin.
What did M. Louise McLaughlin accomplish? She worked uniquely within three branches of ceramics: china painting, underglaze pottery decoration, and studio porcelain. Her significant legacy is china painting. Not only was she an early master of this (adept at painting portraits), she also published (1877) an important guidebook, the first in the USA concerning china painting. China Painting: A Practical Manual grew to ten editions and achieved bestseller status for booklets of its type (over 20,000 copies sold). It is now recognized that china painting opened the door for women to enter the arts. As Anita Ellis states, "women china painters were afforded self-expression, self-improvement and intellectual stimulation for the first time."
M. Louise McLaughlin’s contribution to underglaze pottery decoration is also a pivotal event in ceramic art history. Having witnessed the underglaze-decorated ceramics by Haviland & Company’s Paris studios, which were prominently displayed at the Philadelphia 1876 Centennial Exposition, she was determined to discover the technique on her own. Pluck and ingenuity won out. Four months or so later, she was able to accomplish what had been sought after by many others over lengthier periods of time. This gave a major boost to the ceramic industry in Cincinnati, which ultimately resulted in The Rookwood Pottery Company. She wrote a manual on this subject as well, Pottery Decoration Under the Glaze, which no doubt has influenced other ceramists (a crucial point that has not been fully researched).
This led to McLaughlin’s formation of the Cincinnati Pottery Club (1879) lasting for a brief eleven years but with noteworthy output. It was the first such club for women in the USA and became a model for other similar ventures. Perhaps McLaughlin saw much of this as a duty to the progress of women. However, the existing rivalry between M. Louise McLaughlin and M. Longworth Nichols reached something of its zenith during these years. The Ali Baba vase (1880) with decorated underglaze slips by McLaughlin was countered by the Aladdin vase (1881) decorated by Nichols (shape No. 1 in Rookwood’s shape book). These monumental vases were only one such indication of the rivalry’s intensity.
McLaughlin was quite proud of her work in the area of porcelain – even though her influence was less than in the other two categories of ceramics. She was the first artist in the USA to produce studio porcelain. She certainly was fearless, erecting a porcelain kiln in her backyard without apparent worry that neighbors would have her incarcerated. Despite her known works (successful and unsuccessful firings of porcelain) and her Losanti Record Book (1898-1902), Anita Ellis is able to state that "no porcelain tradition or body of work seems to reflect a Cincinnati connection." Losanti ware was never exhibited in the USA. No studio porcelain was under exhibition at the time (1898-1904). McLaughlin may have influenced Adelaide Alsop Robineau; however, another influence may have come from Charles Fergus Binns (who inspired both women, albeit at different times).
The author follows M. Louise McLaughlin’s career chronologically. Materials used as illustrations, no doubt highly familiar to the author (who is Decorative Arts Curator at The Cincinnati Art Museum), constitute a model of using images to enhance textural clarity. While one would expect the primary sources employed by Ellis to hone in on accuracy, detail and understanding, she makes remarkably effective use of secondary sources as well. Each aids in highlighting various aspects of the Queen City – particularly in the last quarter of the 19th century. Ellis used enterprising Cincinnati - its economic well-being, its complex social structure, its size relative to other Midwest cities and its well-founded and vibrant culture to paint a rich background for McLaughlin’s career.
Select earlier books concerning ceramics in the USA single out M. Louise McLaughlin’s preeminent position within this tradition. These serve as appropriate inspiration for Anita J. Ellis’ full accounting of McLaughlin’s career. While the book deserves to be read widely within the ceramics community, it also should be considered outside this principal arena. Anita Ellis’ accounting of McLaughlin’s career should rightly interest feminist scholars and those steeped in the Women’s Movement. In addition, those seeking broader and fuller histories of the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetics Movements would find valuable materials here. Then, there are those undertaking the study of American cities (particularly the individuals within them who left an indelible mark, persevered with traditions and yet managed to look clear-eyed beyond such confinement).
At the end of her life, recognition came to M. Louise McLaughlin largely due to Ross Purdy and The American Ceramic Society. Earlier, it had been thwarted by two of the Queen City’s divas de l’empire, Mrs. E.W. Perry and Mrs. M.L.N. Storer. One was a leading socialite who had to have her way; the other was The Rookwood Pottery Company’s founder-owner who consistently denied McLaughlin her discovery of underglaze slip decoration (a bona fide foundation of that company).
McLaughlin’s battle for recognition was won at the age of 90, a year or so before her death. In many ways McLaughlin helped put into place the artist/potter tradition in the USA. Anita Ellis concludes that "The socially conservative, well-bred Victorian artist was a ‘dreamer of dreams,’ and American ceramic history is richer because of it." Indeed.

Ralph Drake is a professional chemist
and a known collector of ceramics.

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