Newcomb College Pottery

Newcomb Pottery (1895-1940). Professor Ellsworth Woodward in 1901 was elected a Craftsman of the Society of Arts & Crafts Boston, in 1904 promoted to Mastership, and in 1924 elected a Medalist. Newcomb Pottery was founded in 1895 and continued in operation until 1940. The pottery was part of the Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in Louisiana which was founded as a woman’s college, and is now part of Tulane University. Ellsworth Woodward and his brother William were trained at Rhode Island School of Design and joined the Tulane faculty in 1884. The two brothers, together with another New Englander, Gertrude Roberts, were the sole instructors of the newly formed art department at Newcomb College. The Newcomb Pottery evolved out of the free classes at the Tulane Decorative Art League (Ellsworth & Gertrude) and the New Orleans Art Pottery (William) after the latter folded. Both were affiliated with Tulane. Ellsworth recalled many years later, “My brother was chiefly responsible for introducing clay work. The classes conducted by him had done something with pottery, and I simply grafted to this root.” Woodward supervised the pottery from 1895 to 1931. Most of the decorators of the Newcomb Pottery were graduate students and professionals who had been through the art program. A most notable inclusion was Mary Sheerer who came to the pottery as a leading designer and who had studied with Arthur Wesley Dow. Men were consistently employed to throw the pots, a role apparently not deemed appropriate for women, despite the intention of training women for industrial art. Early work of Newcomb is characterized by simple bold designs and firm drawing as espoused by Dow in Composition, executed in cool colors under a high glaze. After 1911, matte and semi-matte glazes developed by Paul Cox were almost exclusively used. Decorations inspired by the southern landscape, flora & fauna, were relief carved into the damp clay. Newcomb pottery continually received medals for excellence in design and execution at many exhibitions including: the Paris Exposition, 19090; Buffalo Pan American Exposition, 1901; St. Louis, 1904; Portland, 1905; and San Francisco in 1915.