Part II: Impactful Events

The American Ceramic Studio Movement.

(Note: This series focuses on European‑centric ceramic developments in the United States. I fully acknowledge the significance of Native American ceramic traditions and plan to explore them in a dedicated future series.)

American Potteries at the Dawn of the 20th Century

As the 20th century came into view, the American ceramic landscape began to shift in remarkable ways. Larger pottery concerns, a few born from therapeutic handicraft programs, others driven by an ambition to elevate American ceramics to new artistic heights—started appearing across the country. Among the most influential were Rookwood Pottery in Ohio (est. 1880 and still operating), Pewabic Pottery in Michigan (est. 1903 and still operating), Van Briggle Pottery in Colorado (1899–2012), and California Faience in Berkeley, (1913 into the 1930s). These studios helped define an era when handcrafted ceramics were gaining national attention.

Alongside these larger enterprises, a quieter but equally vital network of small potteries were being formed. Often run by just a few makers, these workshops were deeply rooted in geography. Their clay came from nearby riverbanks or farm fields. Their glazes were mixed from local minerals or sifted wood ash from the hearth. Their vessels were made for daily use, not for display cases or gallery pedestals.

Names that resonated during this time included Marblehead Pottery in Massachusetts (1906–1937), Cowan Pottery in Ohio (1912–1931), and Roycroft Pottery in New York (1905–1915). These makers carried forward traditions passed down through families, apprenticeships, and regional habits rather than formal art‑school training. A pot from one valley might bear a form or firing method entirely unknown just a ridge away. Each region developed its own quiet vocabulary of shape, surface, and firing techniques.

Together, these diverse pottery traditions—ambitious art potteries and humble vernacular workshops formed the rich, evolving fabric of American ceramics in the early 20th century.

Three world events that impacted American Ceramic Arts

The Great Depression (1929 - 1941)

When the Great Depression gripped the United States in the 1930s, the federal government responded with sweeping economic protections, including tariffs on hundreds of imported goods. These measures made foreign products more expensive, prompting Americans to turn toward local producers, including potters, to meet everyday needs. For a moment, domestic ceramics gained new visibility. Yet the surge in interest could not offset the broader collapse in consumer buying power. Small folk potteries found it harder to sustain production and were forced to close.

Still, the Great Depression sparked unexpected shifts. American sculptors, facing shortages of fine imported metals like bronze and copper, began turning to more accessible materials, especially clay. What had once been seen as humble or utilitarian gained new artistic weight. Clay became not just a substitute, but a medium of expressive possibility.

To support artists during this crisis, the federal government launched ambitious public commissions and relief programs. Chief among them was the WPA’s Federal Art Project (FAP), which explicitly aimed to employ artists and artisans. These programs provided wages, studio space, and sometimes even materials offering lifelines to sculptors and craftspeople alike.

Crucially, the FAP did not limit its scope to murals and monumental sculptures. It embraced the arts and crafts movement, hiring skilled clay workers to create ceramic sculptures, architectural ornamentation, and tile work for public buildings. Over 100 community art studios sprang up nationwide teaching adults and children ceramic art. These spaces offered not only education but shared kilns, tools, and teaching positions.

For vessel makers and studio potters, this era marked a quiet revolution. Working side-by-side with sculptors and painters, they began to be seen not just as craftspeople, but as artists. The shift in perception was slow and uneven, and in some ways is still unfolding, but it laid the groundwork for clay’s acceptance into the fine arts.

One early milestone came in the 1930s, when the Everson Museum of Art (then the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts) became the first American museum to exhibit contemporary clay by an American potter. It was a bold gesture that helped legitimize the medium and opened doors for generations of ceramic artists to come.

The Bauhaus (1919 - 1933)

Other events were taking shape in the world that would form a cornerstone of American ceramic art. One of these events was the opening of the Bauhaus school. Founded by Walter Gropius, the school embraced a vision to create a total approach to building and design that integrated architecture, furniture, typography, textiles, metalwork, and stagecraft into a unified practice. The Bauhaus opened in 1919 with a philosophy that form should follow function and that simplicity could serve social needs.

The Bauhaus school attracted a remarkable group of pioneering artists, sculptures, photographers, and potters that shaped modernist thought across their discipline. These instructors were not just educators; they were workshop masters, theorists, and practicing innovators who brought radical ideas into the classroom and studio.

Gerhard Marcks was the “form master” appointed by Gropius to bring artistic direction to the ceramic’s workshops. Max Krehan was a highly skilled potter who ran the workshop’s technical side and taught throwing, kiln operation, glaze mixing, and production methods. Ceramic forms produced by Bauhaus potters were characterized by clean lines, geometric forms, and an emphasis on utility.

After Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, the Nazi government moved quickly to control cultural life, legally restrict, and purge modern and “non‑Aryan” art. One of the targets of the Reich’s Chamber of Culture was the Bauhaus School. To the German government the school represented “degenerate” modernism that did not advance the classical and nationalistic imagery of the government. Works by Jewish artists, leftist, or otherwise disfavored artists were removed from institutions.

The Bauhaus School closed in 1933 under pressure by the Nazi regime. However, its faculty and alumni dispersed internationally, carrying Bauhaus training and aesthetics into the United States and beyond. The school’s legacy is visible in mid‑century modern ceramics, an insistence on interdisciplinary workshops, collaboration between designers and makers, and the elevation of everyday objects to design significance.

After the school closed its faculty and alumni dispersed internationally, carrying Bauhaus training and aesthetics into Europe, the United States, and beyond. Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius taught at Harvard. Josef and Anni Albers taught at Black Mountain College, and later Josef taught at Yale. László Moholy-Nagy established the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the campus and taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

World War II – (1939-1945)

It is hard to imagine a part of the globe that was not impacted by WWII. The War reshaped global societies on a scale unmatched in modern history; staggering human loss, physical devastation of urban centers, displacing people, ballooning homeless populations and the resetting of the international balance of powers.

The war also scattered artists, designers, intellectuals and craftspeople across Europe and the United States. As fascist regimes targeted modernist and avant‑garde creators, many fled to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Latin America. Bauhaus‑trained ceramicists—including Marguerite and Frans Wildenhain—fled Nazi persecution and brought with them a rigorous, modernist approach to clay. Their arrival introduced American potters to European design theory, disciplined workshop practice, and a belief in clay as a medium for artistic expression rather than just utilitarian production. This infusion of international talent helped shift American ceramics toward a more experimental, idea‑driven practice.

The war disrupted traditional craft networks, redirected material resources, and displaced artists across continents—but it also created the conditions for a profound rebirth of ceramics in the United States that would be become to be known as the American Ceramic Studio Movement. This movement would define the ceramic field for the next half century.

In a future blog, I will examine the events of the 1940’s and 50’s that propelled American studio pottery from a regional craft tradition to a modern art movement with national reach.