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Showing posts with label Ruscha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ruscha. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

West German pottery: Ruscha

Ruscha was established in 1948 and was in business until 1996. Probably its most famous design was the 313 pitcher (shown front and center in the second image below), designed by Kurt Tschorner and the bull figurine by the same designer.

Designer Otto Gerharz developed the Vulkano glaze in 1951, which was a forerunner of the thick, dripping fat lava glaze that later characterized much of West German pottery. Other notable designers were Hanns Welling and Adele Bölz.

Rucha pottery is made of white clay and often has an especially neat unglazed ring on the bottom. Markings vary from early handwritten ones, to embossed ones that include the usual for and height in centimeters or just a single number. Some later pieces have the company name embossed on the bottom. Foil stickers were also used.

For many years, Otto Keramik has been producing bull figurines from the original Ruscha molds, and since neither the original Ruscha pieces nor the newer Otto pieces are marked, they can only be distinguished by glazes.

From ginforsodditiques and potsandpots.com


flickr.com - after glow retro

vintage-design-cologne.blogspot.com

etsy.com - TheLavaLounge

etsy.com - vintageberlin36

etsy.com - RetroFatLava

etsy.com - 1001vintage

pinterest.com - Dziuljeta

glaskilian.de

etsy.com - GermanZeitgeist

ebay.com - taeglichamstrand

etsy.com - Vasomania

ginforsodditiques.com

ginforsodditiques.com

etsy.com - everglaze

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Fat lava

For quite some time I've been fascinated by brightly colored West German pottery, but I'd never taken time to read about it till my SIL brought some home from an estate sale over the weekend. A cursory search turned up some websites that seemed promising, so I returned to them today for a closer look.

The term "fat lava" is believed to have started as an imprecise translation of "thick lava," describing the heavy, lava-like glaze on some West German pottery. However, it has evolved over time to be an accepted name for a certain type of West German pottery made from the 1950s to the 1970s, which may or may not have the lava glaze.

Mark Hill, the author of Fat Lava (West German Ceramics of the 1960s and 70s), is the expert most often mentioned on the sites I visited. Some of the leading manufacturers were Roth Keramik, Scheurich, Ruscha, Jasba, Dümler & Breiden and Bay.

From midcenturia.com, ginforodditiques.com, fat-lava.com, markhillpublishing.co.uk


stuffgirlslike.net

collectorsweekly.com

classic-modern.com

flickr.com - H is for home photostream

midcenturia.com

petpeoplesplace.com


This stuff is so much fun! Just looking at it makes me smile. I think I'm going to have to be on the lookout for more of it, as well learn much more about it.