| The company
that became the Fulper Pottery Company was originally founded as the Samuel
Hill Pottery of Flemington, New Jersey in 1815, where Fulper founder Abraham
Fulper worked. Through talent and hard work, Abraham soon became a partner
in the firm with its original founder and ultimately purchased it in 1860
following Samuel Hill's death in 1858. Upon Abraham's death, his sons reincorporated
the company in 1899 under the name of Fulper Pottery Company. Abraham Fulper's
grandson, William H. Fulper II, began producing art pottery with the Vasekraft
line in 1909, and the company soon became known for its creativity in design
and its experimentation with new and unique glazes. Moving well beyond
vases, Fulper began making a wide variety of household items including
bookends, jugs, bowls, beer mugs, candleholders, lamps, perfume and boudoir
lamps, desk accessories, and tobacco jars.
Whimsical pieces of fancy were created
in the form of people, animals, and objects both real and imaginary, many
with thick, rich glazes that seemed to blend colors and run into new shapes
and patterns. Fulper was created in the midst of the arts and crafts movement,
but they were concerned that production techniques reflecting the values
of the American arts and crafts movement of hand craftsmanship would make
their production unaffordable for the general population. As such, Fulper
made their pottery in molds versus being hand thorwn on a wheel by a master
pottery. They envisioned their market differentiation in the uniqueness
and creativity of their glaze lines. In about 1910, Martin Stangl of later
individual fame joined Fulper in even more radical glaze experimentation
and new forms, raising the profile of the company to a national market
and winning various awards at art ware exhibitions such as the San Francisco
Panama/Pacific exposition of 1915.
William
Hill Fulper II |
Johann
Martin Stangl |
| Photos courtesy
of the Hill-Fulper-Stangl Potteries Museum, Flemington,
NJ |
The Vasekraft line remained
popular right through World War I, and its designs retained
an aura of innovation. Nevertheless, Fulper never received
the critical acclaim that hand crafted arts and crafts potteries
of the time such as Grueby
and Rookwood
achieved, and dependence on glazes ensured that no two pieces
were identical, leading to inconsistent quality in production.
Fulper did reasonably well in the market and expanded production
in 1928, but just two years later in 1930 following a fire
at the factory Stangl purchased the company as his base from
which he continued producing kitchenware and other pottery.
Nevertheless, Fulper production of art pottery never really
recovered from the war years and their forays into mass production,
and art pottery production ceased by about 1934.
Today, values are primarily
determined by form and glaze, with the most rare and vibrant
glazes bringing by far the most money in the marketplace. Fulper
experimented with insets of stained glass and other materials
into their pottery during the art production years, and these
pieces of more unique design being especially well collected.
Age is also important to Fulper value, and various marks were
used over the years which help to date the production. A vertical
FULPER in ink was the most common mark during the early Vasekraft
years of 1909 until about 1915, a raised vertical FULPER in
a rectangle was used from 1915 until 1922, a vertical FULPER
in ink but with oriental style characters in a rectangle was
used from 1922 until 1928, and an impressed horizontal FULPER
along with most typically a model number was used from 1928
until art pottery production stopped in 1935.
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