Rookwood Pottery

Is an American ceramics company created in 1880 by Maria Longworth Nichols Storer in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The first Rookwood Pottery was in a renovated school, with Mrs Storer naming it after her father’s country estate. Her first wares were produced on Thanksgiving Day of 1880.

Rookwood Pottery was designed to be as much decorative art as functional pottery and through years of experimenting with kiln temperatures and glazes they produced very popular American art pottery.

Rockwood has gone through a number of ‘eras’ each with its own distinctive character.

The earliest wares featured relief-work on coloured clay in pinks, reds, greys and olive or sage greens. They also produced pieces with gilt or stamped patterns or carved. They also produced plain ‘greenware’ that could be decorated by the purchaser themselves. These pieces are not considered to be Rockwood for collecting purposes.

They then went on to try and standardise their look and produced the ‘Standard Glaze’ which was a high-gloss, yellow-tinted clear glaze. Their decorative subjects at this time were leaf and flower motifs and a series of portraits of American Indians or historical figures. They also produced a variant of the ‘’Standard Glaze’ called ‘Tiger Eye’ which produces a golden shimmer within the glaze. This was discontinued, but is now very collectible.

Continuing to experiment with glazes, in 1894 they produced three more: ‘Iris’ a very clear colourless glaze, ‘Sea Green’ a clear glaze with a green tint and ‘Aerial Blue’ a clear blue tinted glaze.

In 1904 they produced the ‘Vellum’ glaze to respond to the need for a matte glaze that could be used over under-glazed floral and scenic decoration that was in keeping with the aesthetic of the increasingly popular American Arts and Crafts Movement.

With increased interest in the American Arts & Crafts Movement, a matte glaze was needed which could be used over under-glaze decoration (largely floral and scenic).

One of their last glaze experiments was ‘Ombroso’ which was a brown or black matte glaze used on cut or incised pottery.

The 1920s were very profitable years for Rockwood and they rose to employing around 200 people and welcomed 5,000 visitors a year to their workshops.

Unfortunately they were very hard hit by the Great Depression as people could no longer afford art pottery and architects had to use cheaper mass produced ‘Rockwood lookalike’ tiles and mantels.

Things went downhill in the 1930s and the company filed for bankruptcy in 1941. The artists stayed together through the difficult times and as the assets were passed through the hands of various owners, they continued to produce wares in much lower volumes. They never fully recovered and ended up ceasing trading in 1967.

However, the company was revived in 1982 and wares were produced that kept the original trademarks alive. Various Cincinnati investors set up the Rookwood Pottery Company and acquired all the trademarks, over 3,000 original moulds and the hundreds of glaze recipes used by the original company.

The company is now thriving and collaborates with the University of Cincinnati on arts projects.