Pottery and porcelain is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Kilns have produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed pottery, glazed stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exceptionally long and successful history of ceramic production. Earthenwares were made as early as the Jōmon period, giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world. Japan is further distinguished by the unusual esteem that ceramics hold within its artistic tradition, owing to the enduring popularity of the tea ceremony.
Pit firing is the oldest known method for the firing of pottery. Examples have been dated as early as 29,000–25,000 BCE, while the earliest known kiln dates to around 6000 BCE, and was found at the Yarim Tepe site in modern Iraq. Kilns allow higher temperatures to be reached, use fuel more efficiently, and have long replaced pit firing as the most widespread method of firing pottery, although the technique still finds limited use amongst certain studio potters and in Africa.
Maria Poveka Montoya Martinez was a Puebloan artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez, her husband Julian, and other family members, including her son Popovi Da, examined traditional Pueblo pottery styles and techniques to create pieces which reflect the Pueblo people's legacy of fine artwork and crafts. The works of Maria Martinez, and especially her black ware pottery, are in the collections of many museums, including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and more. The Penn Museum in Philadelphia holds eight vessels – three plates and five jars – signed either "Marie" or "Marie & Julian".
Frederick Hurten Rhead (1880–1942) was a ceramicist and a major figure in the Arts and Crafts movement. A native of England, he worked as a potter in the United States for most of his career. In addition to teaching pottery techniques, Rhead was highly influential in both studio and commercial pottery. He worked for the Roseville Pottery, established his own Rhead Pottery (1913–1917), and in 1935 designed the highly successful Fiesta ware for Homer Laughlin China Company.
Lucy Martin Lewis was a Native American potter from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. She is known for her black-on-white decorative ceramics made using traditional techniques.
The Fiesta Tableware Company is a ceramics manufacturer located in Newell, West Virginia, United States. Established in 1871, it is widely known for its Art Deco glazed dinnerware line, Fiesta. In 2002, The New York Times called Fiesta "the most collected brand of china in the United States".
The Overbeck sisters were American women potters and artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement who established Overbeck Pottery in their Cambridge City, Indiana, home in 1911 with the goal of producing original, high-quality, hand-wrought ceramics as their primary source of income. The sisters are best known for their fanciful figurines, their skill in matte glazes, and their stylized designs of plants and animals in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles. The women owned and handled all aspects of their artistic enterprise until 1955, when the last of the sisters died and the pottery closed. As a result of their efforts, the Overbecks managed to become economically independent and earned a modest living from the sales of their art.
Red Wing pottery refers to American stoneware, pottery, or dinnerware items made by a company initially set up in Red Wing, Minnesota, in 1861 by German immigrant John Paul, which changed its names several times until finally settling on Red Wing Potteries, Inc. in 1936. The pottery factory that started in 1861 continues to the present day under the names of Red Wing Pottery and Red Wing Stoneware. There was a respite in production when Red Wing Pottery Sales, Inc. had a strike in 1967 causing them to temporarily cease trading. The company still makes both zinc/Bristol glazed products as well as salt-glazed, hand-thrown, kiln fired items.
The Museum of Ceramics, housed in the former East Liverpool Post Office, is a ceramics museum that contains an extensive collection of ceramic wares produced in and around East Liverpool, Ohio, United States. The museum is operated by a Museum of Ceramics Foundation and by the Ohio Historical Society in a city long known as "America's Crockery City" and "The Pottery Capital of the Nation."
Ladi Kwali or Ladi Dosei Kwali, OON NNOM, MBE was a Nigerian potter, ceramicist and educator.
Eric Norstad (1924-2013) was an American potter and architect who worked primarily on the west coast of the United States.
Emily Edwards was a co-founder and first president of the San Antonio Conservation Society. She was an artist, historian and teacher, and a lifelong friend of Diego Rivera. She is remembered as being a key figure in preventing the paving over of the part of the San Antonio River that is now known as the San Antonio River Walk.
Enella Benedict was an American realism and landscape painter. She taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a founder and director for nearly 50 years for the Art School at the Hull House.
Hazel Hannell was an American artist and activist. She was known for her pottery, watercolors, woodblock prints, activism for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and development of the Chesterton Arts Fair. She taught pottery in her studio at home and watercolor painting at The Clearing Folk School in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin through her connection to fellow Prairie Club member Jens Jensen. She died in Ashland, Oregon while living with Harriet Rex Smith at age 106.
Brayton Laguna Pottery produced ceramics (pottery) in Laguna Beach, California from 1927 to 1968.
Karl Martz was an American studio potter, ceramic artist, and teacher whose work achieved national and international recognition.
The Lithgow Valley Colliery and Pottery Site is a heritage-listed former pottery and colliery and now pottery and visitor attraction at Bent Street, Lithgow, City of Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1876 to 1945. It is also known as Lithgow Pottery and Brickworks. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Denise Wren was an Australian-born British studio potter and craftsperson. Wren was one of the first female studio potters in Britain. She studied and taught with the Kingston School of Art, Knox Guild and Camberwell College of Arts. Wren and her family subsequently set up the Oxshott Pottery and wrote on the subjects of ceramics, textiles and making.
Jesús Torres was a Mexican-American artist, sculptor, and designer. His facility with multiple artistic media, including clay, tile, wood, metal, and leather, made him a frequently-commissioned craftsperson in Chicago's during the 1930s and 1940s. He was one of several immigrant artists who began their practice at Jane Addams' Hull-House in the 1920s. Notable solo works include his final commission, where he was hired by the Pullman Company to design the interiors of five cars for the Golden State Limited, which traveled throughout the American Southwest.
Myrtle Merritt French (1886—1970) was an American ceramicist. She is known for founding the Hull-House Kilns program and for directing the program from 1927 to 1937.
