Artus Van Briggle (American 1869 - 1904) Sunny Afternoon

Van Briggle was born in Felicity, Ohio. In 1886 he enrolled at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and studied under Frank Duveneck. That same year he was apprenticed to the great American ceramic chemist Karl Lagenback at the recently formed The Avon Pottery in Cincinnati.

Avon Pottery was short-lived and in 1887 Van Briggle joined the Rookwood Pottery where he would once again work with Lagenback. In 1893 he left for Paris, France to study painting with Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens at Académie Julian followed by study in Italy in 1894. He was back in Cincinnati in 1896.

Although he was an accomplished painter, it was the lure of discovering how to achieve the long-lost, satin-matte pottery glazes first produced by Chinese master centuries ago that was to forge his path. Due to poor health Van Briggle and his wife, Anne, also an artist, moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado where they opened Van Briggle Pottery.

It was circa 1901 that he finally created his long sought-after dream-- the perfect, rich, matte-glaze. Van Briggle Pottery became known for Art Nouveau designs using their satin-matte glazes. Poor health plagued him throughout this time and in 1904, at the age of 35, he died of tuberculosis.

Van Briggle was a member of the Cincinnati Art Club and Associated Society of Western Artists. He exhibited Van Briggle Pottery at the Art Institute of Chicago (1896-1897); Cincinnati Industrial Exposition (1898); Paris Salon (1903, awards-2 gold, 1 silver, 12 bronze); and St. Louis Exposition (1904, medals-2 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze).