North Carolina is home to the only continuing pottery tradition in the United States outside the Native American tradition of the Southwest. Noted for this rich tradition from Seagrove to Pisgah, work produced here has earned the attention of collectors, artists, and visitors from around the globe. The collection of The Mint Museums in Charlotte, numbering more than 1,600 pieces, is considered the most comprehensive in any public institution. This volume catalogs more than four hundred individual pieces in the Museums' collection and includes five essays by authorities in the field of ceramics, providing a visual and textual guide to a vibrant living tradition.
Illustrated with hundreds of color photographs, the catalog includes descriptive entries on potters and potteries and details about individual pieces. These include traditional utilitarian wares from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, transitional or “fancy wares” made during the first half of the twentieth century, and contemporary objects. Displaying works from the four major pottery-producing areas of the state — Moravian settlements, Seagrove, the Catawba Valley, and the mountains — the collection tells the entire story of the North Carolina pottery tradition. Essays by collector and patron Daisy Wade Bridges, scholar Charles G. Zug III, gallery director Charlotte V. Brown, potter Mark Hewitt, and curator Barbara Stone Perry survey the history and significance of one of the state’s best-known art forms.