The Roseville Pottery Company commenced operations during 1890 in Roseville, Ohio. Initially, they specialized in basic, everyday earthenware but eventually they grew to become a leader in the manufacturing of American Art Pottery. On January 4, 1892, the company was incorporated and George F. Young, a painter and potter, was named general manager. Within a few years Young had acquired all the company’s stock and, as a result, became the head of the Roseville Pottery Company.
With Young at the helm, the Roseville Pottery Company grew and prospered. After moving to Zanesville, Ohio the company found its niche as one of the largest and most innovative manufacturers of decorative ceramics in America and remained in operation until 1954 when the plant was sold to the Mosaic Tile Company.

I still remember the very first piece of Roseville Pottery I ever purchased. Attending an auction during the mid 1960’s, I saw a Roseville pottery bowl and gave the winning bid of $0.50. That seemingly inconsequential moment created in me a life-long love of ceramic art. While my Roseville collection has diminished throughout the years, I still have and treasure my most loved pieces. Not only have I enjoyed cultivating my passion for ceramics, I’ve also enjoyed watching Roseville Pottery rise from obscurity to once more become one of the most sought after names from the American art pottery movement.
No internet source can take the place of the many books printed on the topic of the Roseville Pottery Company. The following is meant only as a brief introduction to Roseville. For a list of suggested books, please visit our book page.

Futura

Futura is a Roseville pottery pattern first produced in 1928. It is a prime example of Art Deco design in the American style. The name proclaims it as a breaking with the past and the present. However, as we look back it represents the future as seen from the past or a view from the 1920's of what the designers thought the future would bring. In many ways, that view was surprisingly correct. Much of the decorative pottery produced in the 1970's,1980's and even today as employ the many motifs developed in this early line of pottery. It may be argued that what is called "Post Modern" of the late 20th Century design continuation of the Art Deco era styles. That can be a very why many Futura vases strike the viewer as thourally modern.

Unlike Futura most Roseville patterns of "middle" (1925-1940) and later periods consist of a single design motif or theme carried out in a wide variety of different shapes and sizes of pottery. Some of the patterns are said to be "narrow" in that there are relatively few number of different shapes in the entire pattern. There are also "broad" patterns such as Donatello or Pinecone which consist of over seventy-five different shapes. Futura must be included with the broad pattern production as here are 80 different shapes (including three small flower frogs). Many of the Futura shapes were produced in more than one color combination. A complete collection of Futura would theoretically need to include a total of 95 different pieces if one were to count the jardinire and pedestal and the pair of candlesticks each as a single item and the flower frogs separately.

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The Roseville Pottery Company

Early Years .

In 1898 the Roseville Pottery Company began a move from Roseville to Zanesville, Ohio and by 1910 all production had been consolidated in Zanesville. After a fire in 1917 all Roseville Pottery was produced at a single facility there.

In order to compete with the Standard(Rookwood style brown) Glaze Art Pottery lines produced by other pottery manufacturers they hired Ross Purdy in 1900 to create a new line of artware which came to be called Rozane after ROseville and ZANEsville. Rozane Art Pottery was a highly successful venture but by 1914 tastes had changed and the line was discontinued.

A similar change in tastes struck the Roseville Collector world in the latter part of the 20th Century. During 1960's/70's when pottery collecting was growing in popularity the 'brown glaze' ware was king.

"Yuck who would want that late mass produced floral stuff."
. Sometime in the late 1980's collector tastes did change in a big way. The 'brown' glaze Roseville market literally crashed.
I can remember conversations with collector/dealer friends where we really thought the 'standard glaze' market will come back. Boy were we wrong.

The Roseville Pottery Co. also produced a matte green line called Rozane Egypto in 1904. There were two other green lines called Chloron and Matt Green. All of these are quite popular with todays Arts and Crafts collectors.

In 1904 Frederick H. Rhead was brought in to serve as art director for the company. He was the creative genus behind the design and production of such lines as Crystalis, Fudgi, Aztec, Della Robbia and more. While most of these lines were at best a limited commercial success. Today these pieces are are rare and highly sought by pottery collectors.
Della Robbia is, in my opinion the ultimate of Roseville Pottery production and will hold its own against anything produced by any Art Pottery company of the time. Sadly, Rhead chose to leave Roseville Pottery in 1908.

Middle Period.

The Great Depression of the 1930s had a profound effect on the American Art Pottery companies. Costs had grown tremendously and most could not afford labor intensive wares. In order to remain in business the American Pottery manufacturers began production of what should be called 'Industrial Art Ware'. This was not all bad as a group of very talented designers were 'turned loose' to create and much of the best Roseville Pottery was produced during the 1920's-1930's.

Final Years.

After WWII the era of Art Pottery was long gone and in an attempt to remain competative the Roseville Pottery Company in the Industrial Artware arena began producing the well known floral lines such as Snowberry, Clemantis and Freesia. The glory years were becoming a fading memory as the company designed and put into production a very modern line of dinnerware but the die had been cast and the Roseville Pottery ceased operations in 1954.

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