LCV Winter 2013-14 - (Page 34)

other handicrafts. The enterprise, in operation from 1895 to 1940, was conceived as an educational experiment to train women in the applied arts. The Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University is partnering with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service for a major exhibition of the Pottery's works, entitled Women, Art and Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise. Currently on display at the gallery on the Tulane campus through March 9, 2014, the largest, most comprehensive collection of Newcomb arts and crafts to tour the country in nearly three decades will then embark on a national, eight-city tour through 2016. N ORIGINS OF THE POTTERY Vase, 1903 Motif: Jonquils Artist: Harriet C. Joor, decorator; Joseph Meyer, potter Dimensions: 18 1/4" h. Courtesy Newcomb Art Collection Photo by Owen Murphy 34 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES * Winter 2013-14 ewcomb Pottery offered its artisans an opportunity to better their lives by creating one-of-a-kind decorative items to generate meaningful financial compensation. As a "model industry" within the Newcomb Art School of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, Tulane University's coordinate institution for women, the Pottery enterprise provided full- or part-time employment to approximately 95 women during its 45 years of existence. Newcomb College was founded in October 1886 as an educational arrangement previously untried in the United States, a women's college within a university. The college's original faculty of nine included three drawing instructors, all New Englanders with deep-seated connections to Boston's educational and cultural centers: William Woodward, his younger brother Ellsworth Woodward and Gertrude Roberts (later Gertrude Roberts Smith). Mary Given Sheerer was hired in 1894, first as an instructor in china decoration, then as assistant professor of pottery and, eventually, assistant director of the enterprise. A graduate of Cincinnati School of Design (now the Art Academy of Cincinnati), she was familiar with the workings of the Rookwood Pottery founded there in 1880. Ellsworth Woodward introduced the idea of a pottery program to Newcomb President Dr. Brandt V.B. Dixon in 1893. All the pieces would be thrown by hand, and the objects were to be individual expressions of the artist. Though made for use, the items would be beautiful and were intended to enhance everyday life. The Pottery's handcrafted utilitarian objects are unique in the fact that no two are alike and their decorative inspiration came from the Deep South's natural environs. In 1895 the fledgling pottery set about creating an identity that would reflect its locale and inspiration. Joseph Meyer, who had been hired by the Art School in 1897, was already familiar with local clay deposits across Lake Pontchartrain. He began experimenting with "mud" recipes to suit the pottery's requirements. Due to period social mores, art students' involvement was limited to painting surface decoration. The first samples of Newcomb pottery used an array of colored glazes and two clay bodies in the initial production. The National League of Mineral Painters solicited Newcomb to send pottery samples to the Exposition Universelle de Paris under its sponsorship in March 1900. Student decorators gathered 

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