STYLE / OBSESSIONS : HED: Beauty & the Bisque
I have, I contend, the world’s worst collection of Bauer: few, if any, of the rarest tablewares--no dripolators, no sugar casters in popular glazes like orange and green, not to mention scarce black, white and brown; far from the greatest number of hand-thrown vases; exactly two of the rotund “Indian bowls.” Other Bauer collectors are more focused than I, mounting impressive displays of domestic or floral artwares or items from Bauer’s farm or industrial lines. What interests me is the company’s history, so I’ve cast a broader net, gathering pieces representative of its entire production.
When people think of the J.A. Bauer Pottery Co. (founded in Kentucky in 1885 and, having relocated to Los Angeles in 1910, finally closing here in 1962), they probably think first of its innovative “ringware.” Designed about 1930 and produced through the ‘40s, ringware was introduced in vivid colors as fresh as spring. With these high-gloss, high-lead glazes, Bauer earthenware replaced delicate white or ivory porcelain on American dining tables at pennies per place setting in the days when every penny counted.
My introduction to Bauer took place one afternoon in May, 1976. A friend, Wendell Perry, an antiques collector of considerable gusto, was eager, as always, to share his latest discovery. Dropping to his knees, he began pulling mixing bowls, entire nesting sets, from kitchen cabinets, surrounding himself on the floor. I remember it as a sort of performance, a ballet of clattering bowls, accompanied by Wendell’s breathless narration. Those bowls spoke to the fundamental aesthetic of my soul: a form repeated over and over again in ever-changing colors. And the prices, Wendell confided with equal enthusiasm, were dirt-cheap.
That was just right for a novice free-lance writer. Notebooks I began keeping soon afterward show that I first paid 75 cents to $1.25 apiece for butter plates and up to $3 for bowls. I went out on a limb--$5--for a black bowl and suffered a veritable crise de conscience over $6 for a pink teapot in mint condition. Several years later, I bought Wendell’s collection: 250 pieces for $200.
These days, when the price of those several hundred pieces can easily be spent on a single item, I tend to expend more effort than cash. A 75-mile journey is nothing at all if it yields a 75-cent saucer from an unnamed and long-forgotten dinnerware line. Last summer, I traveled even farther, to Vicksburg, to snag a homely brown jug, branded “J.A. Bauer, Maker, Paducah, Ky.” and scratched in the glaze “From W.E. Beck & Co., Fine Old Whiskies, Vicksburg, Miss.” This jug proves that the Bauer market had stretched beyond Kentucky no later than 1908, the year Mississippi went dry. The price I’d been quoted on the phone seemed steep, but I gambled that by doing the gentlemanly thing, appearing in person, I’d inspire a discount. No dice. I paid the price demanded, establishing, it turns out, a new high. Word spread, and for several weeks, I was the market. Collectors throughout the South hauled jugs of every vintage down from attics and out of barns to sell to the Angeleno, who was, to their chagrin, sated with one.
Even more intriguing to me than datable jugs, though, are the Bauer anomalies, objects that simply shouldn’t exist. There are kitchenwares in the red clay normally reserved for gardenware; iridescent bean pots; ringware tumblers freckled with congealed lumps of once-molten metallic substances--all lovely to my eye, all worthless to the bulk of other collectors.
To the degree that I specialize, bisque is my passion. There are two varieties: pieces that were intended to remain bisque--a dismally unsuccessful line of molded artwares that were glazed blue, green or brown on the inside but left unglazed outside--and seconds. Bauer dispensed with seconds in odd lots, the prices set arbitarily by salesmen in the factory yard. Pottery dealers bought bisque for quick turnaround. Artists and hobbyists bought it to decorate. I buy it because I love it. The shapes are pristine; their details, crisp; their marks, brilliantly legible. A mysterious aura surrounds each piece with its pathetic, untold story of perceived imperfection and callous disregard. I take it home, give it a good scrub and find it a spot among others of its kind, where the vain hierarchies of rare glazes never intercede.
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This essay was adapted from Tuchman’s new book, “Bauer: Classic American Pottery,” published last month by Chronicle Books.
