Ceramics

Rookwood Pottery

11.06.202411.06.2024 by gxeniya

Scenic panel on ceramic View of the Lake Sarah Elizabeth Coyne height 23.5 cm, 1920.

Vase by Sarah Sachs height 38.7 cm, 1903.

Maria Longworth Nichols Storer (1849-1932) founded a ceramic factory in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1880. Maria Longworth was born into one of the wealthiest families in the city at the time. Her happy childhood was spent on her father’s estate, which was called Rookwood. Maria from a young age was immersed in the world of art, she became interested in playing the piano and drawing. In 1868, she married American Civil War veteran Colonel George Ward Nichols, whom her family employed to catalog their extensive art collections. Nichols was eighteen years her senior, and the couple had two children. In 1885, George Nichols died, and a year later Maria remarried a lawyer named Bellamy Storer.

In 1873, Maria became interested in painting porcelain, entered the School of Design, and then the Art Academy of Cincinnati. The wealthy young woman, like many of her contemporaries, was fascinated by Japanese pottery displayed at the 1876 International Exhibition in Philadelphia. And although she had no experience in business, she opened an art pottery workshop, naming it Rookwood in memory of her childhood home. She became the first woman in Cincinnati to own such a business. She soon hired a modest staff, with Clara Chipman Newton as her chief assistant and porcelain decorator.

In 1883, she hired William Watts Taylor to manage the production, a position he held until his death in 1913. William Taylor played a key role in Rookwood’s success. The company became the largest manufacturer of artistic ceramics in the country, in the best years more than 200 people worked here. Taylor sought to elevate humble pottery to the same level as fine art. To this end, the company hired talented artists. More than 130 artists have worked in Rookwood over the years. Among them the most famous are: Matt Daly, Sarah Sachs, Karl Schmidt, Albert Valentien, Lenore Asbury, Kataro Shirayamadani.

This collection is dedicated to the work of Rookwood artists. The Cincinnati Museum of Art has the largest collection of Rookwood art ceramics, with over 2,000 items. All the works presented below are in the collection of this museum.