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