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The Potteries of New England, Part V: Low Art Tile Works

© Barbara Bell

John Gardner Low, born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1835, came from a long line of J.G. Lows, being the sixth of that name in his family. He studied, as a young man, with the great landscape artists Couture and Troyon, in Paris. Upon returning from Paris, he began working in ceramics at the Chelsea Keramic Art Works, where he became fascinated with a particular tile pressing technique developed there a few years earlier.

In 1878 he decided to form his own business in partnership with his father, John Low, in Chelsea, called the J. & J. G. Low Art Tile Company. He patented a process he called "natural" by which the tiles were impressed with real grasses, leaves, laces, etc., in order to capture the delicacy of organic materials. The form was placed on the surface of the lightly shaped and unburned tile and was forced into the clay by a screw press. A piece of tissue was laid over the clay impression, and then a quantity of prepared dust upon the tissue. This was subjected to a second pressing, and then separated from the paper. Every detail of the leaf or grass appeared in relief or intaglio. After completion of the design, a mold was made from the original and filled with "plastic" clay to create the final tiles.

The company was helped immeasurably in the early years by the addition of George Robertson, of the family who founded the Chelsea Keramic Art Works. In 1879 the firm competed with great success at the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, winning a Silver Medal. The following year their series of art tiles was awarded a Gold Medal in competition with the most famous British manufacturers at an exhibition at Stoke-on-Trent, conducted under the auspices of the Royal Manchester, Liverpool, and North Lancashire Agricultural Society, one of the oldest in England.

Also in 1879, Arthur Osborne, an English sculptor, joined the firm as a designer. Robertson and Osborne worked together, Robertson supplying the glaze formulations which were developed by several generations of his family in England and the United States. Osborne brought a new approach to tile design, introducing the concept of the Art Tile, which was sculptural and intended to be framed and displayed like a painting. He called these "Plastic Sketches".

Osborne drew upon various cultures, nature, and mythology. His images included portraits, animals, birds, classical, and landscape scenes. In addition to the Plastic Sketches, Osborne designed hundreds of individual tiles for Low. These ceramic tiles decorated the interiors of both residences and businesses, often for fireplaces, doorways, borders and furniture. Today Osborne's tiles, sometimes identified by his "A.O." mark, are highly sought by ceramic tile collectors.

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