May your hands
be full of clay
and your hearts be
full of imagination.
...Anonymous
This is just part of a beautiful mural on the outside of the Rookwood Pottery Company in Cincinnati. I loved the colors in this as well as their arts and craft tile.
What began more than a century ago as a hobby for one of Cincinnati's wealthiest ladies, it developed into one of the nation's finest and most prolific art potteries. Hard times, bankruptcy, and a misguided move eventually closed its doors. If not for the intervention of a Michigan dentist in the 1980's, Rookwood would likely have been sold overseas. In 2006, after keeping the pottery alive for two decades, it was sold to a group in Cincinnati bringing Rookwood back to where it belonged. Their arts and crafts tile is wonderful but they are most known for some spectacular tile installations such as Chicago's Monroe Building built in 1912, Grand Central Station and the Vanderbilt Hotel in New York City, the Rathskeller at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville and the Carew Tower and Avondale Library in Cincinnati.
I like this mural too. I’m so glad Rookwood is back and you embraced the tile and its history. So many beautiful examples of the tile is installed all over town. A fountain found in a bowling alley was rescued and is now in the Cincinnati Art Museum. I read the same fountain was installed in Lord & Taylor in New York too. Interesting!!
Beautiful mural- since I'm married to a tile craftsman I will now have to look up this company. He works in a lot of homes of this caliber- one of the few installers in northern NJ that works with glass. Good shot!
Read about it here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/6759575957
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Fountain_of_the_Water_Nymph%27,_Rookwood_Pottery_Company,_Cincinnati_Art_Museum.JPG
https://sites.google.com/site/historictileinstallationsn/home/NY_MANHATTAN-lord-and-taylor-rookwood-room