Description
San Jose Mission Pottery Tile. 6.25" square. No cracks, chips, or restorations. No issues, really nice example.San Jose Mission Potteries refers to a group of
tile and pottery workshops founded by Ethel Wilson Harris in the San Antonio,
Texas area starting in the 1930s. tw119HistoryEthel Harris was a great
enthusiast of traditional Mexican art, and the three potteries – Mexican Arts
& Crafts, San Jose Potteries, and Mission Crafts – provided an outlet for
Mexican artisans to produce native-inspired ceramic designs. Her first pottery
company: Mexican Arts & Crafts (MAC), launched in 1931. The pottery opened
in the granary of the Mission San José. A small shop attached to the pottery
sold wares promoting Mexican-influenced design to area tourists.Harris hired a
principal designer, Fernando Ramos, while he was still a high school student.
Ramos was responsible for the collective potteries’ well-known scenes of Mexican
life, local culture and dancers. He left in 1934 to take up dancing full-time
and studied Spanish, Mexican and Gypsy dance in Mexico. Along the way, he met
and married another dancer, Carla Montel. The pair became a popular dance team
in the 1940s, appearing in nightclubs and movies. Flamenco dance themes are
common in MAC pottery. In the late 1930s, Harris copyrighted Ramos’s designs,
and continued to use them for many years after his departure, in all three
incarnations of her pottery workshops.Her workshops gained additional exposure
through participation at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. By 1934, Harris’s
success led to expansion with San Jose Pottery, started up as a production
facility for the smaller MAC workshop, which couldn’t support the kilns needed
for tile manufacture. San Jose Pottery also manufactured a line of dinner-, art
and tileware known as “Pan American Ware.” These pieces featured Colonial,
Western, Indian and Mexican scenes.Harris left San Jose Pottery in 1937
following a disagreement with the president and partial owner of the company,
Cecil Beck. As part of the split, she retained rights to all of the designs
produced by the company. The Calla Lily dinnerware line that San Jose Pottery is
known for was produced after Harris left the company. Beck sold the company to a
New York firm in 1941. The pottery burnt to the ground in 1944. Unable to resume
operations, the company went out of business and the building was razed in
1947.Concurrently with her work at San Jose Pottery, the workshop began
producing tile murals and wrought iron tile tables for the 1936 Texas Centennial
Exposition. MAC/San Jose Potteries also produced wares for the 1939 New York
World's Fair.Harris continued her work with MAC. In 1939, Harris joined the Arts
and Crafts Division of the Work Projects Administration (WPA) as a technical
supervisor. During this period, she brought 60 WPA artisans into the workshop.
Items produced during that period include tilework for public spaces, dinnerware
for needy families and other public works. She left the WPA in 1941 to manage
the San Jose Mission State park, and moved into living quarters in the mission.
The third iteration of her workshop, Mission Crafts, was launched in 1941. This
larger workshop featured both more space and a bigger kiln. They collaborated
with local iron artisans and produced tilework in wrought-iron frames and
tables. Harris eventually retired in 1963, when her son took over the business.
Mission Crafts closed in 1977 due to increased production costs.
