Vase
- 218
Frederick Hurten Rhead: An English Potter in America, Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA, 1986, no. 42.
Art with a Mission: Objects of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas, March 31-May 26, 1991, no. 86.
A whimsical band of rabbits dressed in suits and glasses decorates this vase. Children’s book illustrations of the period likely influenced Frederick Hurten Rhead’s design. However, the vase’s rabbits may also be caricatures of the artist himself. Rhead wore wire-rimmed glasses and had a distinctive nose.
Rhead trained in England but enjoyed a long and influential career in the United States. He incorporated decorations commonly used in British commercial art potteries into his work. Here, he referenced British incised motifs by cutting blades of grass into the vase’s surface.
With unknown dealer, St. Louis;
David Stewart, Kansas City, MO, ca. 1983-1984;
William A. Stout, Kansas City, MO, 1984-1994;
His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1994.
Sharon Dale, Frederick Hurton Rhead: An English Potter in America, exh. cat. (Erie, PA: Erie Art Museum, 1986), pp. 38-39(repro.), 70 (repro.).
Bernard Bumpus, “Fredrick Hurten Rhead: A Natural Offshoot of His Family,” Arts & Crafts Quarterly 3, no. 3 (1990): 9.
Patricia Fidler, Art with a Mission: Objects of the Arts and Crafts Movement, exh. cat. (Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 1991), pp. 74-75, 58 (repro.).
