Early Art Pottery.

The highly successful Rookwood Standard Glaze Art Pottery and similar lines produced by other Ohio pottery companies caused Young to hire Ross Purdy in 1900 to develop Roseville's first Art Pottery line which came to be called ROZANE after ROseville and ZANEsville. With the exception of some of the largest pieces Rozane are was molded and hand decorated with many of the pieces being signed by the decorator. Rozane Art Pottery was highly successfull but by 1914 tastes had changed and the line was discontinued. There was also 'Rozane Light' which was mostly floral decoration on light gray blended backgrounds. In my opinion the 'Rozane Light' is far superior to the 'standard' brown glaze Rozane Ware.

The 'Rozane Mara' line was the Roseville Pottery Company answer to the Weller 'Sicardo' line. It came in three variations of a lustre glaze. One was an intricate pattern with a red lustre background, second was a subtle design blending into the background, and the third was a brilliant magenta with highlighted areas of a metallic luster.

The 'Rozane Woodland' line was designed by Gazo Fudji. It was an Oriental style design consisting of naturalistic flowers and leaves incised into the clay. Only the designs were colored with the background retaining the bisque fired clay color. The insides were glazed in order to hold water. It is very hard to find undamaged examples of this line.

Frederick Rhead was hired as the Roseville Pottery art director in 1904 and remained there until 1908 when he was replaced by his brother Harry. The genus of Rhead was behind the design and production of such lines as Crystalis, Fudgi, Aztec and Della Robbia. While some of these had limited commercial success most are rare and highly sought by collectors. Della Robbia is, in my opinionthe ultimate of Roseville Pottery production and will hold its own against anything produced by any pottery company of the time.

The Middle Years.

By the late teens the individually decorated Art Pottery was being discontinued. Among the reasons for this were changes in public tastes and cost of production. While the later production is still generally referd to as Art Pottery in reality it should be called Industrial Artware. This does not take away from the desireability of many of the lines created by talanted designer atrists as todays collectors value these 'middle period' designs quite highly. In fact, the most popular line produced by Roseville Pottery is Pine Cone. The Pine Cone line was designed by Frank Ferrell and had been rejected earlier but at the urging of a salesman named Charles Snider went into production in 1935. Pine Cone was accepted by the public and production continued for more than fifteen years with all shapes being produced in brown, blue, and green colors. In all some seventy-five different shapes were produced during this period.

In 1917, Frank Ferrel became the Roseville artistic director. In addition to Pine Cone he designed many ofthe most successful Roseville Pottery produced prior to WWII. some of these were Iris, Sunflower, Wisteria, Peony, Bleeding Heart, and Blackberry.

The Floral Lines.

After WWII the times were changing and the Roseville Pottery Company produced the well known floral lines such as Zephyr Lily, Snowberry, Freesia etc. the past glory was gone and finally after attempts to produce a line of modernistic dinnerware the company was finally forced to close.

In 1954, Roseville Pottery was sold to New England Ceramics and then to Franklin Potteries, but before the year ended, Roseville Pottery production had come to an end.

The American Art Pottery/Industrial Artware movement of the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries was coming to an end as in addition to Roseville Rookwood, Weller and most of the giants were either closed soon would be. It was a great and wonderfull run and there is a good supply of items to satisfy todays collector.

Not to be to sad as one can still 'beautify their life with a work of creamic art' because the Studio Pottery Movement is alive and well in America.