North Carolina Pottery Jars

Beautiful rounded ginger jar with lid features complex green craquelure glaze; the glaze is fluctuating between forest green and deep celadon green hues, is in high gloss finish, and is smooth to the touch. The inner surfaces are finished with semi-gloss off-white glaze. The jar is in good vintage condition; it is marked and dated on the bottom with one of the earlier, round marks, "N.C. Pisgah Forest West Ashville, Route 19" with the date and potter at the wheel logo (see Kovel's American Art Pottery Marks, p. 149). Inspired by the Arts & Crafts Movement, Walter B. Stephen and his mother began their first pottery, Nonconnah, near Memphis, Tennessee about 1904. Without prior experience, they produced slip-decorated pottery of exceptional merit. Stephen moved to Skyland, North Carolina, in 1913, where he established a second Nonconnah Pottery, the first full-time art pottery in the state. In 1926, Stephen began the operation of his third pottery, Pisgah Forest. Here he explored Oriental glazes and forms, pioneered the first crystalline glazes in the South, and developed his cameo wares which resemble English Wedgewood jasperwares. Pisgah Forest and Nonconnah pottery have gained national recognition from numerous museums and private collectors. Major exhibitions of Stephen’s work have been held at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC, the Asheville Art Museum, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee, American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, California, the McKissick Museum in Columbia, SC, North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, NC, and Southern Highland Craft Guild, Asheville, NC. Bibliography: Leftwich, Rodney Henderson. Pisgah Forest and Nonconnah: The Potteries of Walter B. Stephen. Bradenton FL...