Hall China

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(pronunciation: as spelled)

This restaurant and commercial wares maker is still in business producing strong, one might say nearly indestructible, china, as well as lighter, non-commercial china. Some pieces of the institutional china are available on the retail market, and restaurant supply companies have Hall products available for sale. Although all the heavy products are available in white, many are available in some subset of the forty-seven colors eventually developed by this company for their proprietary firing method. In partnership with various tea and coffee companies of the past, Hall tea and coffee pots were given as premiums to purchasers, leading to an expansion in the number of shapes these useful pots came in. Refrigerators brought on the design and manufacture of refrigerator wares by the Hall Company, to be sold by the sellers of the appliances, like Sears and Montgomery Wards, as well as the makers of the appliances, like Westinghouse. The employment of Eva Zeisel as designer brought modern shapes and patterns into the Hall portfolio.

See Hall China.

My opinion: Beautiful strong colors on industrial strength restaurant wares. A collection of one shape in all the colors it came in would be interesting, as well as a collection of tea and coffee pot shapes. Or look at the various household patterns and shapes for inspiration for your collection.

Product lines:
in conjunction with Jewel Tea Company: Autumn Leaf
with Standard Coffee Company: Blue Bonnet
with Great American Tea Company: Orange Poppy
with Grand Union Tea Company: Red Poppy
with Cook Coffee: Silhouette
with Standard Coffee: Silhouette
with Sears Harmony House: Monticello, Mount Vernon
with General Electric, Sears, Hotpoint, Montgomery Ward, Westinghouse: refrigerator boxes and containers
novelty teapots
institutional and restaurant lines
Gold Decorated Line, including a World’s Fair design
Hallcraft Line, designed by Eva Zeisel, with many patterns

Prices:
Varies with new/used and retail venue. None really expensive.

Collector’s Society: http://www.hallchinacollectors.com/_sgg/f10000.htm

The official company site is: http://www.hallchina.com/ or http://www.hlcdinnerware.com/

History
Begun in 1903 to make toilet sets, white wares and jugs, the company developed a firing technique in 1911 where one high-temp fire bonded newly developed glazes to the china body. The results were highly durable and suitable for restaurants and institutions. Restaurant wares were followed by the Gold Decorated Teapot line. The company added decal decorated dinnerware in 1936, including kitchen items like mixing bowls, coffee and tea pots and refrigerator items on mostly modern shapes.

The most famous Hall pattern is Autumn Leaf, which debuted in 1933 on kitchen wares, and in 1936 on dinnerware. This patterns was so popular, Hall China sold decals to other companies to use on their ceramics. Eventually the pattern was dropped by the other companies, but Hall continued to make Autumn Leaf items until 1976. Since then special commissions in this pattern were made in 1990 at the request of China Specialties and also for the Hall Collector’s Club.

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A Book Review: Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni, by Allan Hayes and John Blom

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Although I have a small collection of Southwestern pottery myself, I was looking for a book that could show and tell me more. I found this one, and I want to tell you about it. It is well worth the price and the space it will take in your library.

This is not a scholarly tome, nor is it an exhibit catalog. It is the pottery collection accrued by four average citizens using reasonable amounts of money to pursue a new interest. From knowing nothing to writing this book, the two couples spent a few years looking at pottery, buying some, and learning from other collectors and pottery experts. The pottery they purchased includes both modern, mostly, and some antique specimen.

The story of their pursuit makes a nice backdrop to the bulk of the book, which is pages of photographs of the pottery they now own. Each pueblo or pottery community is presented separately, with from nine to twenty pots posed together on the facing page. Some pueblos have several ages, those with long traditions of pottery, while others have only one or two photographs and accompanying text because of their dearth of pottery historically and/or in modern times.

To provide a foundation in prehistoric pottery, the book begins with pictures and descriptions of the older pottery sources, the Mogollon, Anasazi, Cibola, Hohokam, Salado, White Mountain, Hopi and Sinaqua and Casas Grande. Each of these antique types of pottery is presented in two pages, one full page color picture of the pieces the authors have purchased, and the facing page with a brief discussion of the area in which the pottery is found and what makes it different from other pottery types.

Modern pottery is then discussed in the same two page format, where the right hand page is a photograph of many pots, and the left hand page carries the discussion of the pottery pictured. Some modern pottery locations require more that a single pair of pages. If a site requires more than one set of pages, the pottery and write-up is divided by time period within modern developments, and by family of potters where strong family traditions hold sway.

The Pueblos and other settlements presented include the following, and are presented in alphabetical order:

  • Acoma
  • Casas Grande/Mata Ortiz
  • Chochiti
  • Hopi
  • Isleta
  • Jemez
  • Laguna
  • Maricopa and Pima
  • Mojave
  • Nambe
  • Navajo
  • Pojoaque
  • Sandia
  • San Felipe
  • San Ildefonso
  • San Juan
  • Santa Ana
  • Santa Clara
  • Santo Domingo
  • Taos and Picuris
  • Tesuque
  • Tohono O’odham
  • Zia
  • Zuni
  • The Others

The advantage of having the pots grouped together in photographs are several, including making the relative size of the pieces immediately obvious. It also makes it easier to see general trends in pot decoration as they are discussed on the facing page. These are not the large museum pots that require photography-in-the-round to see them properly, but pots of a size to display in one’s home. If the pots were photographed individually, the book would be much larger than the satisfying 189 pages it is.

After a brief section of definitions of the types of pottery, the authors keep their use of technical terms to a minimum. There are opening chapters about the general geographic area Southwest pottery comes from, and some discussion of the authors criteria for buying a pot. Their “rules” are quite down-to-earth, and yet the resulting collection is quite impressive. And, as the authors pointed out, pottery is one form of art that is readily available to regular people whether they live in the Southwest or not.

For those of us who do not aim to the rarefied heights of the great collections of the world, the approach for this book and the collection on which it is based is very welcome. Even people of modest means can create collections of note, and the information they discover in the process is worth writing down for someone else to understand the collection as a whole and in detail. If you want only one book on Southwest pottery, I think it should be this one.

Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni
by Allan Hayes and John Blom
Northland Publishing
1996

Go to the Table of Contents to see all the topics covered so far.

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Southwest Pottery: Mata Ortiz

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Mata Ortiz is actually a town in the northern Chihuahua State of Mexico. From this town a whole new type of Southwestern pottery is emerging. The style of the hand-built pottery and its fine decoration make this pottery an exciting addition to the traditional forms we have seen for a hundred years or more.

The Story of Mata Ortiz Pottery

Now seeing the emergence of the third generation of Mata Ortiz potters, this style began in 1960s with a man named Juan Quezada. It is most unusual in the ceramic world to be able to identify the beginning of any style, but in this case the Twentieth Century’s avocation of record keeping comes in handy. From this one man’s experiments with local clays, firing techniques and methods of decorating the pottery has come a whole village of potters turning out beautiful works, and their receiving the recognition from the art world from the beginning.

P7240268 © by Ant Ware

The Mata Ortiz pots are made from clays and methods that leave the leather stage absolutely smooth and able to take the finest lines in their decoration. And the fine lines are used to delineate areas for decoration in geometric-like shapes, but the style of the Mata Ortiz frequently does not extend the same decoration all over the pot. Considerable variation may be found on a single large pot, although smaller ones may have a uniform decoration.

Red versus Black Pottery

Mr. Quezada and the potters who follow his lead have discovered the differences between aerobic and anaerobic firing techniques, and the changes in the resulting pots. The same form and decoration, red and black on a cream colored pot using the aerobic method, turns shiny and matte black on a pot fired using the reducing (anaerobic) method. Thus the Mata Ortiz pots can be found in either coloration.

Mata Ortiz pottery © by a rancid amoeba

Mata Ortiz pottery is recognized by the art and craft world as the fine work it is, and therefore there are substantial prices involved when the pots are large or when they are made by known potters. The small pots have reasonable prices, and pieces by new potters are less expensive. Look for one or two you like and watch their expertise grow as they continue to make pottery over time. Or pick a motif you like and buy from many potters as this Southwest pottery continues to grow and evolve.

See more Mata Ortiz Pottery.

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Southwest Pottery: Santa Clara and San Ildefonso

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Since the mid-Twentieth Century, Santa Clara and San Ildefonso Pueblos have been known for the black pottery they make. Although the forms they make are also made in the reddish-brown clay color, the potters of the two pueblos are far more famous for the black pottery.

Thin Walled Pottery vs Thick Walled Pottery

Some of the Santa Clara and San Ildefonso pottery is made with thin walls and some with thick walls. The thin walled pottery is generally decorated with a black on black decoration where shiny black motifs stand out from a matte black background. There are also thin walled pots that are shiny black all over. The difference lies in areas that are polished using a stone and those that are not, once the pottery is leather hard. The same technique is used on the terra cotta pottery to make red on red patterns.

The thicker walled pots are carved with wavy lines, small dots and other forms of decoration. These may also be polished in part or in whole to make the surface shine. On some pots, integral handles arch over the pot as a handle for functional as well as aesthetic reasons.

Marie Martinez is one of the most famous Twentieth Century Santa Clara potters, and there are more today than before. The coil built pots are smooth to the touch as well as to the eye, and the color on color makes the decoration more subtle than much of Native American pottery. Here again, once you have seen it, you can identify it. Fortunately, Santa Clara and San Ildefonso potters sign their work, although the use of the pueblo name in the signature is less common that at other pueblos.

Not all black on black pottery comes from the New Mexican pueblos. The Mata Ortiz potters, newly developing their talent and use of materials, also create black on black pottery. These pots are more eccentric in their shapes, and the decoration is often at least in part a grid where tiny shiny and matte squares alternate. But more about the Mata Ortiz later.

The pottery from the San Ildefonso and Santa Clara Pueblos can be found in most major collections of Native American pottery, but also still on the market for those who enjoy its sensuous look and feel. Work with reputable dealers if you must have authentic Santa Clara pots, or buy what you like if you want the style and feel, and leave the worry about authenticity to others.

Go to the Table of Contents to see all the topics covered so far.

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Southwest Pottery: Jemez

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(pronunciation: hay-mis)

Jemez pottery on one where the basic terra cotta color of the clay the vessel is made from is used as the basic canvas on which the decorators work. The beautiful reddish brown of the coil built pottery is decorated using black and a lighter shade of the terra cotta which is a creamy, pale orange. These three colors are the basis for the traditional Jemez pottery decoration.

Much of the Jemez pottery is decorated with geometric patterns, with lots of triangles, slightly curved on the sides to accommodate the shape of the pot. The painters of this pueblo also use small arch shapes to decorated around the neck of vases and in other areas. These may be drawn in black and filled in with the pale orange color, or may be drawn in the terra cotta color on an area previously covered with the pale orange slip.

Jemez Storyteller Figures

The Jemez potters also create storyteller figurines, and small circles of figures call friendship bowls. These bowl-shaped pots have the head and shoulders of four or more figures added to the rim, and the all the figures face towards each other. Some friendship bowls have the full figure of the people either hanging on the side of the pot or lounging in the pot if it is a low sided pot. These are a nice addition of the traditional motifs of the human figurines made by the Native Americans.

Jemez Melon Pots

Another new development in the Jemez Pueblo is the carved pottery by Marcella Yeppa and others. These pots have much thicker walls than is traditional, but the clay is deeply carved into vertical or swirled rounded vanes, yielding an emphatic melon shape. These pots range from small to medium, as the technical problems with making large ones, including the weight of the final pot, preclude larger versions to date. These pots, once seen, are immediately identifiable, and are fascinating.

Cross-Fertilization of Pottery Styles

With the increased communication between different pueblos and Native American groups, a lot of cross-cultural fertilization is now taking place. Jemez pottery sometimes has the white slip to emulate the pottery of the Acoma, and the Acoma have adopted the storyteller figure from another First People. To offset the problem of identification by the shape or decoration of the pottery, most modern artists sign there pottery with both their name and the name of the pueblo or people they belong to.

Many of the Jemez potters continue to use the traditional methods and shapes for their pottery, and you can find their work in many stores that carry Native American pottery and artifacts. You will also find new forms and decorative patterns as well, made by the residents of this ancient community.

The photos on this page are by the author.

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Southwest Pottery: Acoma

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(pronunciation: emphasis on the first syllable, like Yakima)

Having just returned from a trip to the Southwest of the USA, I thought we’d take a break from manufactured porcelain to look at the pottery of the First Peoples of North America. I will begin with the Acoma pottery.

Black and White

The Acoma pottery is fairly distinctive in that basic clay used by these people is white. Combined with the black pigment used for the decoration, the majority of the Acoma pottery is black and white. The Acoma potters also use a nice terra cotta slip to add a third color to their pottery. Although there is some experimentation with other, modern colors, like green or turquoise, the traditional Acoma pottery is mainly white and black, with some reddish-brown accents.

This pot was made using a age-old technique that results in a corrugated surface.

The Acoma use both figurative and geometric patterns on their pottery. Since there is only one pueblo in the lives of these people, any traditional buildings illustrated are the Acoma pueblo. Other areas of the pot may be painted solid black with arching edged to create sail-like black patterns.

The Acoma Lined Decoration

The Acoma claim to fame is the many parallel lines used to fill in areas of the decoration. Some pots, even large ones, are covered by these lines arranged in geometric fields that cover the entire pot. Others have star-shaped figures with the interior filled with lines. It takes a long time and lots of practice to get the hang of making the lines uniform and parallel, and pots decorated in this manner are easily identified as Acoma and are quite impressive in the skill they take to make.

Acoma Animal Figured Pots

Other Acoma pottery includes figures of animals from the area of the pueblo. These include deer, birds and reptiles. especially the ubiquitous lizards of the area. The Acoma also make pots in the shapes of birds and turtles, which are decorated in either the arches of the non-lined style or by the parallel lines method.

People figurines by the Acoma consist mainly of the story-teller figurine with the smaller audience figures clustered on or around her. Kokopelli, not a traditional figure in Acoma pottery, has also become common on Acoma pottery as the various Native American people begin to exchange ideas and traditions.

The feather motif used here is a popular one with the First Peoples.

Some Acoma pottery decorators appear to be resurrecting the Mimbres style of decoration, with a central animal figure and some decoration on the rim of the bowl or around the pot neck. These are well done, and fit in with the traditional style of Acoma pottery, as well as bringing the Mimbres back to life.

Acoma pottery has something for everyone, with humans, animals and geometric patterns well represented. While those with deep pockets can acquire antique Acoma pottery, there is plenty of contemporary painters that produce reasonably priced pots for the rest of us. These are not cheap, but they are beautiful and worth collecting.

See books and Acoma pottery for sale now.

The photos on this page are by the author.

Go to the Table of Contents to see all the topics covered so far.

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