The Origin of American Studio Pottery

 

QUESTION: I’ve always loved handmade pottery. And looking back over history, it seems to have existed since ancient times. Recently, a friend told me that Charles Binns was the father of American studio pottery. Exactly what does that mean? Isn’t all handmade pottery made in a studio?

ANSWER: While pottery, itself, has existed for eons, what’s referred to as “studio pottery” is a relatively recent phenomenon, dating to the very late 19th century and early 20th. 

Although now nearly forgotten, Charles Fergus Binns, a studio potter and instructor, enjoyed a national reputation during the early years of the 20th century for his classic stoneware pots. Binns' made many of his legendary stoneware vases, bottles, bowls and jars during the height of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the U.S.

Born in England in 1857, Binns left school at age 14 to become an apprentice at the Royal Worcester Porcelain Works, where his father was a co-managing director. Eventually, he occupied an administrative position at the Royal Worcester factory and  became a recognized scholar and lecturer concerning world ceramics. In Paris, in 1878, he exhibited his early experiments with clay bodies and glazes. Binns accompanied the Royal Worcester exhibit of 1,400 pieces to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and made the United States his home in 1897. 

Binns's ceramic technique focused on his pots as utilitarian objects. His work included vases, urns, and bowls. He threw each piece in three forms on a wheel, turning them on a lathe and piecing them together afterwards. One of the concepts Binns taught was “dead ground,” in which the parts of making pottery that couldn’t be precisely controlled, such as firing temperature or glaze calculations, were mitigated by control over glaze placement.

In 1899, Binns helped found the American Ceramics Society. His role in this organization led to the directorship of the newly formed ceramics department of Alfred University, the first United States college to combine programs in ceramic art and science. In the years that followed, Binns shared once-secret clay recipes and glaze formulas with his students, including Arthur Eugene Baggs, William Victor Bragdon, R. Guy Cowan, Maija Grotell and Elizabeth Overbeck, who were largely responsible for fostering the idea of the artist-potter in America.  

Binns is commonly referred to as the "father of American studio ceramics." This title reflects not only his creation of unique stoneware pots in the Arts & Crafts style, but additionally acknowledges his accomplishment of bringing vital information about ceramic clay bodies and glaze recipes to ordinary people, thus laying the foundation of the flourishing studio ceramics movement in the United States that began in the early 1900's.

In 1900, New York Governor Teddy Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics—now the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Appointed as the founding director at that time, Binns held the position for over 30 years until his retirement in 1931, during which time he became known for his classic pots with rich monochrome glazes.

Before Binns' arrival at Alfred University, it was customary for one

person to throw art pottery on the wheel and another person to glaze or decorate surfaces mar reflected his respect for the natural materials he used. He admired Oriental forms and glazes. and sometimes signed his pieces by putting his initials, “CFB" inside a circle closely resembling Chinese marks. His signed pieces ;following Asian tradition, Include his initials along with the year in which he made them.

Binns' work was widely exhibited during his lifetime, including his earliest documented stoneware vase, signed and dated 1905, and his final creation, a fragile bisque vase that he

signed and dated 1934, which he left unglazed and unfired at the time of his death. A memorial exhibition Of Binns’ works drew admiring crowds at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1935.

American studio ceramics really began with Charles Fergus Binns, who introduced the principles of chemistry and materials science into the ceramic arts. 

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A Clock With Balls

QUESTION: When I was growing up in the 1950s, my parents had a colorful clock hanging on our living room wall. It had colored balls for the hours and stood out against the white wall. I had forgotten about it until recently when I discovered it, covered with dust, in the attic of my parents’ house as I was cleaning it out after my mother died. What can you tell me about this clock, and does it have any value or should I just give it the old heave ho?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, that dusty old clock is an icon of 1950s modern design. Often listed as being designed by George Nelson, the clock is shrouded in controversy. Yes, George Nelson did indeed play a part in its creation, but historians now believe that its actual designer was Irving Harper, who worked for George Nelson in his design studio.

The Ball Clock was the first of more than 150 clocks designed by George Nelson Associates for the Howard Miller Clock Company, which sold them from 1949 into the 1980s. Nelson Associates, first launched as a studio by George Nelson in 1947 in New York City, employed some of the most celebrated designers of the time, including Irving Harper, Don Chadwick and John Pile, all of whom contributed to the clocks.

George Nelson Associates, Inc., a leading home furnishings and accessories design studio, made modernism the most important driving force during the 1950s.  From his start in the mid-1940s until the mid-1980s,  George Nelson partnered with most of the modern designers of the time. His skill as a writer helped legitimize and stimulate the field of industrial design by contributing to the creation of Industrial Design Magazine in 1953.

Nelson became the Director of Design for Herman Miller, a leading industrial design firm, in 1947 and held the position until 1972. He used the money he earned in this position to open his own design studio in New York City. On October 26, 1955 he incorporated it into George Nelson Associates, Inc. and moved to 251 Park Avenue South. The studio brought together many of the top designers of the time, who were soon designing for Herman Miller under the George Nelson label. Among the noted designers who worked for George Nelson Associates were Irving Harper, George Mulhauser, designer of the Coconut Chair, Robert Brownjohn, designer of the sets for the James Bond film Goldfinger, Don Chadwick, Bill Renwick, Suzanne Sekey, John Svezia, Ernest Farmer, Tobias O'Mara, George Tscherney, who designed the Herman Miller advertisements, Lance Wyman, and John Pile.

But controversy was to cloud George Nelson’s success. In recent years, it has come out that many of the designs for which Nelson accepted credit were actually the work of other designers employed at his studios. Examples of this include the Marshmallow sofa, designed by Irving Harper, and the Action Office, the forerunner of the office cubicle and for which Nelson won the prestigious Alcoa Award, neglecting to mention that it was Robert Propst who actually created it.

It seems that Nelson believed that it was okay for individual designers to be given credit in trade publications, but for the consumer world, the credit should always be to the firm, not the individual.

Nelson’s company designed many wall and table clocks for the Howard Miller Clock Company, including the Ball, Kite, Eye, Turbine, Spindle, Petal and Spike clocks, as well as a handful of desk clocks. However, Irving Harper designed most of them. Howard Miller assigned numbers to all the original clock designs. The most famous, the Ball Clock, became Clock 4755. It was available in six color variations.

According to legend, the Ball Clock was designed by George Nelson, Irving Harper, Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi during a night of drinking in 1947. Its Space Age atomic look supposedly came from the an abstraction of the atom with its nucleus and particles.