UNC Press - North Carolina Pottery

<SPAN STYLE= "" >North Carolina Pottery</SPAN>

224 pp., 9 x 12, 384 color and 13 b&w photos, notes, bibl., index

Published for The Mint Museums by the University of North Carolina Press

Cloth

ISBN 978-0-8078-2908-0

Published: October 2004

Paper

ISBN 978-0-8078-5574-4

Published: October 2004

North Carolina Pottery

The Collection of The Mint Museums

Edited By Barbara Stone Perry

North Carolina is home to the only continuing pottery tradition in the United States outside the Native American tradition of the Southwest. Noted for this rich tradition from Seagrove to Pisgah, work produced here has earned the attention of collectors, artists, and visitors from around the globe. The collection of The Mint Museums in Charlotte, numbering more than 1,600 pieces, is considered the most comprehensive in any public institution. This volume catalogs more than four hundred individual pieces in the Museums' collection and includes five essays by authorities in the field of ceramics, providing a visual and textual guide to a vibrant living tradition.

Illustrated with hundreds of color photographs, the catalog includes descriptive entries on potters and potteries and details about individual pieces. These include traditional utilitarian wares from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, transitional or "fancy wares" made during the first half of the twentieth century, and contemporary objects. Displaying works from the four major pottery-producing areas of the state--Moravian settlements, Seagrove, the Catawba Valley, and the mountains--the collection tells the entire story of the North Carolina pottery tradition. Essays by collector and patron Daisy Wade Bridges, scholar Charles G. Zug III, gallery director Charlotte V. Brown, potter Mark Hewitt, and curator Barbara Stone Perry survey the history and significance of one of the state's best-known art forms.

About the Author

Barbara Stone Perry is curator of decorative arts at The Mint Museums in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is author of American Art Pottery from the Collection of Everson Museum of Art.

Reviews

"An unprecedented resource for understanding the value, significance, and history of this centuries-old art and craft. . . . Destined to become the authoritative guide to the state's pottery tradition."
--The Mountain Times

"The first comprehensive publication on the Mint's extraordinary collection. "
--New England Antiques Journal

"[A] handsomely illustrated book. . . . The essays offer history and aesthetic appreciation."
--American Craft

"A visual as well as textual guide to a vibrant living craft. . . . This volume should go a long way toward preserving the pottery tradition of North Carolina."
--Our State

"The presentation revealed here is nicely paced with a good introduction to the subject by the curator of the museum and subsequent chapters relating the progress of the art form from its earliest utilitarian origins to its more artistic and historically aware recent configurations. The presentation is effective and compels reading by anyone at all interested in ceramics, American arts and culture in general, or North Carolina's history in particular."
--Ronald Andrew Kuchta, Editor, American Ceramics

"North Carolina Pottery offers historical insight into the significance of our state's rich pottery tradition. The Mint Museums' comprehensive collection illustrates--and this book documents--the unique qualities of hand-turned pottery as a utilitarian craft and a decorative art form. The reader also gains insight into the cultural and family connections shared by North Carolina potters."
--Ben Owen III, Seagrove, North Carolina