Description:
Mug, made by Margot Broxton Johnson (1909-1998) at the Old Deerfield Pottery, Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1933-1937. Impressed mark of a leaping deer with “OLD DEERFIELD MASS” stamp and incised conjoined initials “MB” The mug is molded in the shape of a man's face with mustache and beard, slightly reminescent of Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. There is a strap handle in the back and the whole is covered with a blue glaze. Transfered from the Brooklyn Museum, from the collection of Florence Balasny-Barnes. Condition: There are a few chips to the rim of the mug and a larger chip to the base.
Label Text:
According to Suzanne Flynt's Poetry to the Earth, "during the Great Depression, the craftwork community in Deerfield received an injection of creativity and energy with the arrival of two newcomers, Randolph Johnston (1904-1992) and Edward “Ted” Norman. In 1933, Johnston established the Deerfield Studios Art School, and his brother-in-law, Ted Norman, built the Old Deerfield Pottery, both located at the Bloody Brook Tavern. Once the Old Deerfield Pottery was in production, the two men hired Margot Broxton and Phyllis Little as assistants. All four worked on the wheel, with molds, and by the coil method, and had a hand in firing their wares marked with the leaping deer logo. Margot Broxton, a native of England who grew up in Washington, DC, trained as a ceramicist at the Corcoran Art School and at the Art Institute of Chicago. Broxton created molded figural creamers and sugar bowls. Gertrude Ashley likely described these mugs when she said that Broxton carved “the grotesque face on a ‘Toby’ mug or jug.” In 1937 Broxton and Johnston married, and in 1938 moved to South Deerfield, where they set up a foundry and pottery. Ted Norman continued to run the Old Deerfield Pottery by himself specializing in simple, elegant, hand thrown forms such as bowls and vases with solid glazes." Historic Deerfield owns several examples of Norman’s work but no pottery by Margot Broxton, a female craftsperson working in 20th-century Deerfield. The Memorial Hall Museum of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association owns a sugar bowl and creamer with a brown glaze.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2023.15.2 |
