Description
Early 1920's Van Briggle Rabbit Paperweight in mulberry. No cracks, chips,<br>restorations or crazing. 3 7/8" long x 2.5" tall.<br>tw122<br><br>Van Briggle Art Pottery was at the time of its demise the oldest continuously<br>operating art pottery in the United States, having been established in Colorado<br>Springs, Colorado in 1901 by Artus and Anne Van Briggle. Artus had a significant<br>impact on the Art Nouveau movement in the United States, and his pottery is<br>foundational to American Art Pottery. The Art Nouveau style favored by its<br>founders continues to influence the pottery's designs.<br><br><br>Artus Van Briggle settled in Colorado Springs in 1899 after establishing himself<br>as a notable artist with the Rookwood Pottery of Ohio. With Anne Louise (née<br>Gregory), his new wife, Artus began exploring the Art Nouveau style in their<br>pottery creations, drawing awards and accolades from the American and European<br>art communities. Although he was a talented painter who had displayed and won<br>awards in Europe, from 1899 until his death Artus devoted himself almost<br>exclusively to the craft and art of pottery. Van Briggle's Art Nouveau designs<br>and distinctive matte glazes were awarded high honors from prestigious sources,<br>including the Paris Salon, the Saint Louis Exposition, the Lewis and Clark<br>Centennial Exposition, and the American Arts and Crafts Exhibition in Boston.<br><br>The Van Briggle Pottery Studio closed in spring 2012<br><br>Artus Van Briggle in 1900.<br>Born to artistic parents on March 21, 1869, Artus Van Briggle had an early<br>introduction to painting using materials found about the home. The Van Briggle<br>family lived in Ohio, one of America's hotbeds of ceramic design. At the age of<br>17 he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he decorated china dolls at the Arnold<br>Fairyland Doll Store, while attending his early art studies at the Cincinnati<br>Art School. After a stint at the Avon Pottery where he was introduced to the<br>ceramic arts, Artus took a job at Rookwood Pottery; there he excelled at<br>hand-painting designs. His skill and talent were recognized by Rookwood founder,<br>Maria Storer, who became his benefactor, even sending him to France to study art<br>at the Académie Julian in Paris.<br><br>In Europe, he was exposed to styles of art and became infatuated with an early<br>matte glaze from the Chinese Ming Dynasty; a type that was lost to history.<br>Artus also met his future wife, fellow American student Anne Lawrence Gregory,<br>an accomplished artist in her own right. Finishing their Paris studies in 1896,<br>they returned to America. Artus resumed his work at Rookwood and also started<br>sculpting and experimented with recreating the lost Ming Dynasty glazes.<br><br>Perfecting the distinctive dull or matte glaze<br>In 1899, struggling with health issues due to tuberculosis, Artus left Rookwood<br>and moved to the drier air of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Upon befriending the<br>Holmes family of Chico Basin, he stayed at the HOP Ranch during the summers of<br>1899, 1900, and 1901 to reduce work stress and regain strength while pursuing<br>his own styles of pottery, centered around the Art Nouveau movement. He<br>continued his research on the ancient matte glazes that fascinated him in Paris.<br>After two years of trials and experiments a matte glaze was perfected. One of<br>the matte glazes perfected by Artus was the matte blue glaze, based on an<br>ancient Chinese process that had long been lost to history.<br><br>Artus opened Van Briggle Pottery in 1901 and was joined by Anne Gregory, who<br>took a position as a high school art teacher in Colorado Springs. In 1903, Artus<br>Van Briggle was appointed First Director of the Department of Art and Design in<br>Colorado College, succeeding Louis Soutter, a Swiss artist (born in Geneva,<br>Switzerland) he met in Paris in 1895.<br><br>In 1902, Anne and Artus were married, and she devoted herself to their pottery;<br>she created designs and collaborated in all aspects of the enterprise with her<br>husband. Late 1902 brought Van Briggle awards for his glazes and designs in Art<br>Nouveau from the prestigious Paris Salon; he was now an accepted artist. During<br>their early years, Artus and Ann established hundreds of Art Nouveau styles of<br>pottery under the Van Briggle name. The Despondency vase won Van Briggle wide<br>acclaim and first place at the Paris Salon in 1903. A display at the 1904<br>Centennial Exhibit in St. Louis won Van Briggle more awards and greater<br>international fame.<br><br><br>Van Briggle Memorial Pottery<br>Pottery loses its founder<br>Artus Van Briggle died in July 1904, at the age of 35. Anne continued the<br>pottery using the forms created by Artus as a foundation and adding more designs<br>of her own. In 1907, Anne and pottery stockholder and city-founder William<br>Jackson Palmer began construction on a new pottery on Uintah Street. The Van<br>Briggle Memorial Pottery — designed by Dutch architect Nicholas Van den Arend —<br>was opened in 1908 and stands today as an historic landmark noted for its<br>architecture and use of ceramics in the facade.<br><br>Having remarried in 1908, Anne Louise Gregory Ritter leased the pottery in 1912<br>to Edmund deForest Curtis, who ran it until 1916. She sold the company in 1922<br>to J.F. and I.H. Lewis and moved to Denver the following year, where she would<br>concentrate on painting and where she remained until her death in 1929. In her<br>absence, the pottery fell under financial hardships and was sold at sheriff's<br>auction; later it was re-sold, once more becoming the property of Mr. Curtis.<br><br>Surviving disaster and war<br>The pottery was sold twice more in the ensuing decade and survived a fire in<br>1919 that gutted the interior but left the brick shell and kilns. New owners<br>I.F. and J.H. Lewis took the opportunity to modernize and expand the facility<br>beginning in 1920 and stabilized the production and financial aspects of the<br>pottery for the first time. Despite damage from the flood of 1935—the most<br>destructive flood in Colorado Springs history — that destroyed much of the<br>company's records and molds, the pottery continued to enjoy success up to World<br>War II, when they closed for approximately three years as the United States<br>focused its resources on the war effort.<br><br>With the increase of interstate travel in the United States a freeway was<br>planned in 1953 for Colorado Springs which J.H. Lewis estimated would run<br>through the Memorial Plant site. Although the freeway eventually was planned to<br>avoid destroying the historic pottery, Mr. Lewis nonetheless put into action<br>plans to relocate the pottery to a higher-traffic area of Colorado Springs. In<br>1955, Mr. Lewis and Clem Hull brought a new facility on line at a renovated<br>railroad roundhouse on Midland Road. The new facility, known as the Midland<br>Plant, had a smaller capacity but enjoyed quick success due to its location on<br>the main highway to the Garden of the Gods and other tourist locations.<br><br>In 1968, Mr. Lewis sold the Memorial Plant to Colorado College, and it fell into<br>disrepair for the ensuing 40 years, being used variously as offices and storage.
