| Marblehead
Pottery was established in 1904 by Dr. Herbert J. Hall as a studio
art pottery in Marblehead, Massachusetts using the art and technique
of ceramics manufacturing and decorating as a rehabilitation and
therapeutic aid to local sanitarium patients at Hall's Devereux
Mansion Sanitarium. Director Arthur Baggs joined Marblehead Pottery
soon after its establishment in 1905; Baggs was an expert in the
technique of incising ceramics by hand and hand painting the surfaces
with typically geometric patterns in alternating and contrasting
colors. In 1915, Baggs became the primary owner of the pottery,
leading Marblehead into a period of its optimum creativity as
a top producer of art pottery during the American
Arts & Crafts years of the 1920s and 1930s. While Marblehead
production expanded, they always remained a small studio operation,
and employment at the factory never exceeded about 8 workers.
Mixing hand done techniques
with more mechanized production, Marblehead specialized in glazes
that combined pebbled and matte finishes in high quality, uniquely
shaped and colored works. Marblehead Pottery glaze colors were
more diverse than contemporaries like Grueby
which also specialized in matte finishes, but Marblehead used
many different colors in contrast to Grueby's primarily green
matte glazes- Marblehead blue was the most popular but you also
find pink, green, yellow, gray, and brown were all popular colors
that the pottery produced during the 1920s and 1930s. They produced
many different forms but were especially known for their realistic
depictions of fish, seahorses, and other marine life in addition
to birds, flowers, and more naturalistic shapes. Like many other
art potteries of the time, Marblehead had financial difficulties
during the years following the Great Depression, and they finally
ceased production in 1936.
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