By Claudie Benjamin
Some older New Yorkers may remember the first modest beginnings of Pottery Barn in 1949. Early on, the threadbare store was on Tenth Avenue and 19th Street. Pottery was then sold in crates. There were no shelves. Somewhat younger people who are drawn to handmade earthenware may recall the later period of the 1950s and 1960s when the business took off. The Pottery Barn store at 1965 Broadway at 67th Street opened in the late 1990s. By then, “Pottery Barn” was a recognizable home furnishing style available in many locations. Today, the well-known multinational enterprise is owned by William Sonoma. It all started with the chance find by a young woman named June Secon at a yard sale in Rochester, NY, where she purchased a dozen pieces of pottery for a dollar a piece. Her husband, Morris Secon saw the opportunity presented by those pieces of stoneware produced by Glidden Parker, an accomplished designer, at his Glidden Pottery factory in Alfred, N.Y. “Morris spoke with Mr. Parker and learned that there were three barns filled with products that could no longer be sold to upscale stores. For $2,500, the Secon brothers bought 2,500 pieces of stoneware. They loaded the family station wagon with the discontinued and slightly damaged ceramics, drove to Manhattan, rented the store for $35 a month and opened the first Pottery Barn” relayed The New York Times.
According to a 1952 article in The New York Sun, “a couple of years later,” the store received a helpful publicity bump from the New Yorker in its “On and Off the Avenue” column. Family lore has it that society matrons in furs and jewels lined up to take a whack at the merchandise.”
Apart from the contents of the armfuls of seconds and discontinued items purchased by the Secons, Glidden Pottery thrived during the 1940s and 1950s. “Parker successfully marketed his dinnerware lines to stores in New York City, and while production started slowly, by 1945, Glidden Pottery was selling 150,000 pieces every year and employed fifty-five individuals. Parker’s success continued into the 1950s, with consumers around the country purchasing his products, which were often written about and advertised in magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, and House Beautiful” according to the Everson Museum of Art.
Ceramics Art Historian Margaret Carney PhD, founded the International Museum of Dinnerware Design in 2012. The museum, originally located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, recently relocated to Kingston, NY, and opened to the public in early November. Dr. Carney, the author of an exhibition catalog titled Glidden Pottery, recently commented on Glidden and his work. “He was a genius not only in designing the shapes and glazes of much of the early work produced at Glidden Pottery, but also because of his decision to invite other gifted designers such as Fong Chow and Sergio Dello Strologo to work with him.” Fong Chow won Good Design awards at the Museum of Modern Art for his Charcoal and Rice forms and glazes, among many awards. He later went on to serve as Curator of Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 25 years. The Chi-Chi Poodle decorations were the creation of June Chisolm around 1951. Each was hand-painted, so no two are alike. Poodles were wildly popular at the time. Glidden Pottery can be spotted in episodes of “I Love Lucy,” “Make Room for Daddy,” and “Perry Mason” shows in the 1950s. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz chose a complete service of 48 of Gliddenware in the Feather pattern for their home in Palm Springs, California.
SLIDESHOW: Potter Glidden Parker, Glidden Teapot, Katherine Parker Grossman with her collection
Among hundreds of examples of Glidden pottery are some series of works glazed in a palette of 1950s colors that recall vegetables like avocado, squash, and pumpkin, and then there are many others with whimsical figures of animals and circus figures – each hand-painted and each one different from the other. Glidden Parker’s wife, Pat Parker, is credited with creating many of the early glazes, which were known by names such as mustard, clover pink, and matrix.
Dr. Carney noted that her personal favorites among Glidden Pottery designs are New Equations, designed by Fong Chow and introduced in 1953, and the Alfred Stoneware/Buffetware designed by Sergio Dello Strologo and introduced in 1956. Dr. Carney says the passion to collect Glidden Pottery is contagious, and it is exciting when a collector of other Mid-Century dinnerware discovers the vast array of designs produced by Glidden Pottery from 1940 to 1957. The International Museum of Dinnerware Design has quite a bit of Glidden Pottery in its permanent collection, and it will be featured in the two inaugural exhibitions in Kingston.
When asked about materials and casting techniques used for Glidden Pottery, Garth Johnson, Curator of Ceramics at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY, and a former student of Prof. Carney at Alfred, noted that he had just purchased a wonderfully charming set of small mid-century Glidden Pottery dishes decorated with circus figures for his personal collection. Garth agreed with other experts that the buff or gray clay used to make the stoneware was collected from New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He also explained that the shapes were formed by using a Ram press and slip casting technologies.
Parker’s granddaughter Katherine Parker Grossman cherishes the many pieces of Glidden pottery she owns. “I mostly inherited them but also purchased some. My favorites are the teapots, vases, and decorated platters.”
She said, “We eat on some of the plates every day. But I would never use the gorgeous decorative platters.”
The founders of Pottery Barn took a risk on finds they loved and would surely have been surprised to find how their dream evolved over the next 75 years.