ROOKWOOD POTTERY
At The Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Gerald and Virginia Gordon Collection

By Nancy E. Owen

Reviewed by: BY NICK AND MARILYN
NICHOLSON

CONTENTS
This stylish book was written to accompany the November 14, 2003, to February 8, 2004, exhibition of Gerald and Virginia Gordon’s gift of Rookwood Pottery to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Contents include a brief preface by Anne d’Harnoncourt, Director and Chief Executive Officer of the museum, followed by a marvelous section wherein the Gordons recount their collecting journey. Begun in 1971, this journey resulted in the acquisition of the pots gifted to the museum. They discuss in a somewhat chronological fashion their sources for most of the pieces of their collection as well as the thinking and learning that went into their purchases. Amazingly, they had decided by 1985 that their collection was ultimately going to reside in a museum. To this end they tailored purchases so that the broadest range of glaze lines, decorative motifs, decorators and shapes would be included. We’ll revisit the collecting prowess of the Gordons later in this review.
Next is a section by Jack L. Lindsey, Curator of Decorative Arts of the museum, where the historical significance of Rookwood Pottery to the Philadelphia Museum of Art is recounted. Following this we get to the heart of the book – a historical review by Dr. Nancy E. Owen of the Rookwood Pottery itself, the review being organized into time periods - 1880s, 1890s, 1900 to 1915, 1915 to 1928, and 1928 to 1967. For each time period Dr. Owen discusses significant innovations offered by Rookwood to the growing art pottery movement in the United States. She skillfully utilizes photographs of pieces in the Gordon collection to illustrate the innovations, and comments liberally on the artistic talents possessed by Rookwood decorators.
Concluding subjects include a checklist of the Rookwood inventory of the Philadelphia Museum, an extensive bibliography of sources used in Dr. Owen’s section, and an inventory of makers and decorators. The book consists of 135 pages illustrated with over 125 color photographs (taken by photographer Graydon Wood).

ANALYSIS
We thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Dr. Owen’s prose is perfectly interwoven with the fruits of the Gordon’s collecting talents. In fact, if one did not know how the work was assembled, one might as well conclude that the Gordons collected to illustrate Dr. Owen’s text rather than the other way around. The two pieces fit like a hand in a soft glove.
Dr. Owen has previously published the book "Rookwood and the Industry of Art: Women, Culture and Commerce 1880-1913," along with several other papers tracing the development of marketing in the art world and of women’s roles in said development. These publications were outgrowths of her PhD thesis work and as such were naturally very "academic" in style. We detect a softening of that writing technique in this book – more descriptive and more appealing to a broader range of art lovers in general and art pottery collectors in particular.
The chronological sections provide collectors with insight into the major (and some minor) innovations from Rookwood. Dr. Owen does a wonderful job of pointing out many of the artistic difficulties associated with the designs and motifs comprising each new technique or glaze. As stated previously, but worth emphasizing, for nearly all of the innovations there are truly outstanding examples from the Gordon’s collection to illustrate the points being made:

? 1880s – Underglaze decoration, Japanese influence, marketing pottery as art, development of talented artists, Tiger Eye glaze, airbrush technique

? 1890s – Naturalistic decoration, Standard glaze, portraiture, Native American decoration, Sea Green, Iris and Aerial Blue glazes, Art Nouveau decoration

? 1900-1915 – Arts and Crafts influence, introduction of mat glazes, relief decoration, carved or incised decoration, Vellum glaze, tonalist landscape painting, Ombroso glaze

? 1915-1928 – Semitranslucent "soft porcelain" bodies, high-gloss glazes in brilliant new colors, combinations of mat and gloss glazes on a single vessel, French Red, Ivory Jewel Porcelain and Decorated Mat glazes, development of commercial wares (perhaps not an innovation but surely of historical significance)

? 1928-1967 – Art Deco motifs, Mat Moderne, Butterfat and Wax Mat glazes, pochoir designs, Wine Madder, Cirrus, Vista Blue and other less well known glaze lines

Could a collection such as the Gordons have assembled be duplicated today? An interesting question! Maybe it could be done, but not without VERY deep pockets. There just aren’t that many "monumental" Rookwood pots that come up for auction, and those that do are the subjects of intense competition among collectors and museums. How often do you come across a GREAT Tiger Eye, a 12+ inch Aerial Blue, Grace Young Native American portraits, a Sea Green plaque, 14 and 15 inch Iris vases, mat glaze figurals by A. M. Valentien, Hentschel Ombrosos, 13+ inch Rothenbusch scenic Vellums, large Sax French Reds, and on and on and on?
We first met the Gordons at a lunch table outside the auction room at Union Terminal in Cincinnati, waiting for the next Treadway session to begin. They described their collection in broad terms and discussed the difficulties they were having in choosing the best museum for permanent housing. It seems to us that they have in the end made wonderful choices – a museum that obviously treasures their gift and a writer that understands both Rookwood’s historical significance and the power of the Gordon collection to illustrate that history.
We have but one criticism. The exhibition will be held in Philadelphia in the dead of winter, over several major family holidays and for only a bit more than three months. Many who might wish to attend will find it difficult to schedule a visit. We certainly hope to get there – and drool over the pots!

The Nicholsons have been collecting since the late 1980s. They specialize in Rookwood and Kenton Hills but dabble in several other potteries.

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