Bowl
Item
Title
Bowl
Creator
Hull House Kilns
Date
1927-40 (ca.)
Dimensions
4 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches
Medium
Glazed earthenware
Object No.
1997.12
Credit line
Museum Purchase, 1997
Marks
Remnant of black octagonal ink stamp, "HULL / HOUSE / KILNS / CHICAGO / HHK"
Description
The Hull-House Kilns emerged from the social settlement center Hull-House, founded by Jane Addams, as a means for providing Mexican immigrants employment and created a short-lived commercial pottery production that became a beneficial contribution to the Hull-House. The pottery was at the center of a ceramic aesthetic exchange between art pottery evoking an American design and American-made pottery that evoked the spirit of Mexico. Myrtle Merritt French, the head of the Kilns, promoted her vision for the future of American ceramics at the Kilns by bringing together British ceramic arts and crafts traditions and the Hull-House arts and crafts tradition of offering “high” culture to workers and families that offered hope and promise to both immigrants and reformers in the midst of the economic depression.
–Heather Brickley
–Heather Brickley