Glidden Pottery - an Analysis & History 

by Bruce A. Austin

Once, while wrestling to define ‘indecency’, Supreme Court Justice Stevens observed that what makes something indecent is its out-of-placeness. That is to say, context accounts for how something is perceived. ‘Words that are commonplace in one setting,’ he wrote, ‘are shocking in another.’

Although I am not trying to build an analogy between indecency and Glidden Pottery, there is a conceptual link. Read on.

A museum can offer us many things: a contemplative place for viewing and studying objects, a forum for cultural debate, a space in which to view the ordinary in an extraordinary setting and a space to view extraordinary things we don’t normally get to see.

Museums act as a kind of lens that focuses and sharpens our attention. They say to us, by nature of their status as an institution: "Look at this; This is important." Things displayed there take on significance, often beyond what they would in another context.

In short, a museum exhibition serves a legitimizing function. Sometimes this is unwarranted; sometimes it is long overdue.

 The latter is surely the case for the exhibition of Glidden Parker's work presented by the Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art at Alfred (NY) University.

On view until Thursday, September 27 and curated by Museum Director Dr. Margaret Carney, dozens and dozens of examples are presented - from the mundane and utilitarian to the scarce and exemplary.

Glidden Parker & Glidden Pottery

Glidden McLellan Parker, Jr. was born July 26, 1913 in Phillips, Maine. He earned a B.A. from Bates College (Lewiston, ME, 1931-35), attended the University of Vienna (1935-56) where he studied philosophy, the history of film and German literature, and was a graduate student in the summer school program at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred (NY) from 1937-39.

While at Alfred he studied under Don Schreckengost, a noted ceramic industrial designer. He died in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 19, 1980.

Entrepreneurial, no doubt, it was Parker's ingenuity that helped move Glidden Pottery to the public's attention. Too, the designers he hired facilitated consumer (and, today, collector) interest in the product.

Best known, perhaps, among the fewer than a dozen designers were Sergio Dello Strologo and Fong Chow. Dr. Carney writes: "The genius of one man could not sustain this company for 17 years, it was a combination of the genius of Glidden Parker coupled with his keen ability to select the best individuals as colleagues."

In 1941 Glidden Pottery was producing 225 average-sized pieces a week. That same year, such significant flagship department stores as John Wanamaker (Philadelphia) and Macy's (New York City) began to carry the Glidden line of pottery.

By 1944 more than 50,000 pieces were shipped with another 100,000 pieces sold and awaiting shipment in 1945. Employment at Glidden Pottery peaked at 55 people in 1946.

Attentive television viewers could see examples of Glidden Pottery in such 1950s programs as ‘I Love Lucy’, ‘Make Room for Daddy’ and ‘Perry Mason’. (‘Lucy’ - Lucille Ball - was from Jamestown, NY, 100 miles west of Alfred.)

Although mass produced, using modern production methods of slipcasting or ram pressing, each of the forms was individually glazed and decorated.

Estimates of the number of individual forms vary; Carney reports that 300-400 pottery shapes were created. The final piece of Glidden Pottery was fired in mid-December, 1957 and on February 27, 1958 The Alfred Sun, a local newspaper, reported that the firm had permanently closed.

The Art of Glidden Pottery

Truth be told, Glidden produced a huge quantity of pretty ‘ho-hum’ everyday ceramic wares. Like so many commercial manufacturers, the business of Glidden was selling and, in order to remain profitable and continue operations, the selling had to occur in substantial numbers.

The exhibition's catalogue reports that "production of Glidden Pottery was enormous, with 6,000 pieces manufactured each week during 1953."

While finding Glidden's product is not difficult (at least not in Western New York, where I live), finding the "good" Glidden is quite another story.

Making a case for the artistic virtues of the ‘Blue on Blue’ line (a medium and dark blue glaze together) or the ‘Clover Pink’ line (pink exterior with blue interior) or the ‘Mustard’ line (yellow-brown exterior with an aqua interior) is a considerable stretch - even for rabid, hardcore Glidden collectors. The colors are unexciting and the forms on which they are most frequently used (bowls and vases with rounded corners that soften the squared-off forms) uninspiring.

Alternatively, and perhaps not coincidentally, among the most interesting - and least easy to find - forms and glazes are those produced just before Glidden Pottery went out of business: ‘Eye of God’ (so-named by contemporary collectors, not the firm or designer), ‘Green Mesa’, ‘Gulfstream’, ‘Sandstone’, ‘Charcoal and Rice’, and ‘Loop’ Artware.

These designs were by Fong Chow (or, in a few instances, in collaboration with Parker); I suspect this, too, was not a coincidence. Chow worked at Glidden Pottery from 1953 (following his graduation from Alfred) until 1957, when Glidden Pottery closed.  

Interest in Glidden's output has, no doubt, been enhanced by the Internet.

As is by now well known and acknowledged, the world wide web offers a wealth of information with varying levels of accuracy. Hence, interest in Glidden, once a strictly grassroots and homegrown phenomenon and the purview of the idiosyncratic and narrow specialist, has been piqued; "communities" of Glidden collectors, previously geographically dispersed are now formed in cyberspace.

Too, and equally well known, such online auction services as eBay afford collectors endless opportunities to surf for the objects of their desire. And, with such a competitive situation as auctions insist upon, enhanced values have been obtained for what was once perhaps considered the ordinary or the commonplace.

The Catalog

I've written previously and at some length on research about the Arts & Crafts Movement and how such scholarship was initiated first from a broad perspective and is now conducted and presented in a more tightly focused fashion. Even within a particular medium, specialization has occurred.

For instance, exhibitions on American art pottery have moved beyond broad waterfront approaches to such individualized exhibitions on Grueby Pottery (1981, Everson Museum; 1994, Hood Museum of Art) and Teco Pottery (1989, Erie Art Museum) and, most recently, Arequipa Pottery (2000, Oakland Museum).

Tracking in a way similar to Arts & Crafts, scholarship and exhibitions on the mid-century modern design movement has begun to focus and specialize.

Such a trajectory suggests not only sophistication with reference to a particular decorative style, it also suggests an enhanced body of knowledge. Contributing importantly to any advances in scholarship within the mid-century ceramics genre is the catalogue for the Glidden exhibition.

The 139-page exhibition catalog, Glidden Pottery ($30), offers a detailed history of the firm and the man, and was prepared by Dr. Margaret Carney.

Included are line drawings of known shapes, an essay on the Pottery's designers by collector Ron Kransler, a brief note on the mold shop by Wallace C. Higgins (he was a model and mold maker at Glidden beginning in 1952), 75 full-color photographs of the objects in the exhibit and more than 40 historical black-and-white photographs.

The catalog's only flaw is the method of captioning the historical photographs; while the catalog is a horizontal format, the photo captions run on the vertical axis, though this is a minor complaint.

Presumably, we are soon to have even more information on Glidden Pottery.

For at least ten years I have known of Ron Kransler and the fact that he has been preparing or writing a book on Glidden.

Kransler is an upstate New Yorker and long time collector; his unpublished manuscript is cited in Carney's bibliography. Also cited by Carney is the work of David Pierce whose unpublished manuscript appears in the bibliography of the catalog with an italicized title.

Conclusion

After reading the catalog and/or visiting the exhibition itself, one rapidly gains an appreciation and genuine affection for Glidden's art.

While clearly many objects were made simply to be used, Glidden also created an astonishing number of forms and glazes meant mostly to be admired.

Glidden produced interesting, eye-appealing forms decorated with colors and glazes that are aesthetically magnetic, fitting well with the world that surrounded them and remaining timely in the sense of timelessness, not timeliness.

As such, Glidden art wares do not announce themselves as "Fifties!" in the often self-congratulatory way so many other period manufacturers products did; the Glidden designs are as fresh today as they were a half century ago.

The exhibition accurately, fairly and comprehensively contextualizes the art with the ‘ho-hum’, thereby affording viewers that which is essential for a full appreciation of the work.

 The exhibition is installed in a very modest-sized room at Alfred’s museum of ceramic art.

It is hard to imagine how all of the 150-plus people (including Fong Chow) who attended an opening reception on April 28 were able to fit in.

Most of the objects are installed on pedestals, some are displayed on circa 1940s Heywood Wakefield furniture.

Given the traditional grassroots popularity of Glidden Pottery there is no better or more appropriate place than Alfred and the Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art for its contemporary exhibit. And, just in case that argument won't suffice, Alfred University was among the first two institutions of higher education in the US to offer a curriculum in clay modeling and design.

The Museum is located in the Ceramic Corridor Innovation Center on Route 244, just north of the village of Alfred. The center is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except on Monday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit is open to the public, free of charge.

For more information, call (607) 871-2421.

Web: www.ceramicsmuseum.alfred.edu

Alfred is located in the Chautauqua/Allegheny Region, the southwestern corner of New York, and is accessible from Route 17.

Special Note: Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition, a club was formed on April 28, 2001. Go to http://members.aol.com/gliddenpottery

 Bruce A. Austin, of Pittsford, NY, is a dealer in American Arts & Crafts furniture and decorative arts. He has been known to buy a piece of Glidden Pottery every now and again. He may be reached at (716) 387-9820.

E-mail: baagll@rit.edu

© Bruce A. Austin, all rights reserved