At the risk of objectification, my best new acquisition of 2008 was Paul. Like my favorite pottery, he has an appealing form, he inspires pleasant conversation among dinner guests, and he doesn't seem to mind me staring at him with a goofy, adoring smile. Because he is also a collector -- primarily of Red Wing Pottery -- 2008 has been a year of rather extravagant additions to the collection. We have goaded and impelled each other to dizzying spurts of antiquing. The phrase "you need that" has lost all meaning. But among all the purchases this year, a few deserve special mention. Over the next few days, I will highlight them, in addition to other reflections on the year that was.
Belle Kogan's Gypsies
For years, my collection almost exclusively comprised functional items - dinnerware, vessels, vases. Things you could use. Things that had a purpose. This year, I ventured into figural pottery for the first time. This is a slippery slope. Once you've bought a Red Wing figurine, a Precious Moment seems less remote from your tastes. Lladro and Hummels and Snowbabies plead to you from antique cases, like puppies in a pound, with baleful eyes. There's a sucker born every minute.
I maintain, however, that my handpainted gypsy couple, designed by Belle Kogan, is a step up. For years I have seen Red Wing figurines in shops and at antique shows. Often, they are monochrome. Only rarely do you come upon the handpainted ones. And among handpainted ones, this pair is extraordinary. The accordion player has pink pants and a polychrome instrument. The dancer has highlights in the folds of her dress. The factory worker who painted this couple clearly took pride in her work. As for the design itself, Kogan created two independent sculptures that complement each other beautifully. Look how the accordionist arches his back, balancing the more dramatic sweep of the dancer's body. The pieces combine into an expressive whole.
Restaurant Exotica
One of my beloved sub-collections is a line of restaurant china that Russel Wright designed for the Shun Lee Dynasty restaurant in Manhattan. I have examples of most of the pieces, including the coffeepot, teapot, fish platter, and rice bowl. They are not Wright's most elegant designs, but they were created to mesh with his interior design for the restaurant. One form that had eluded me until 2008 was the sake bottle (left, above). It's supposed to have a lid, and one complete bottle sold for almost $400 on eBay earlier this year. I was hopelessly outbid. Fortunately, the winner of that auction wanted a lidded bottle, and decided to sell his unlidded one -- which I happily snapped up on eBay a week later. (It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't $400.) The form -- particularly in plain white -- is elegant and modern. While it goes along with the other pieces in the line, it is more sleek and minimal. I love it, and I am thrilled to have it.
The piece on the left is a Red Wing specialty item, created for the Trader Vic's chain of restaurants in the mid-1960s, and purchased in Cannon Falls in November. It's a mug, shaped like, well, what one at the time would inelegantly have called a "native" head. As a mug, it's crap. The handle is formed by a single braid of hair in the back. It's ungainly to hold, and the proportions are all wrong for satisfactory sipping. As a snapshot of "Tiki" culture in the 60s? As a sculptural form? As a rare piece of Red Wing? The mug rules. It has prompted me to hunt down other Trader Vic's items -- a whole new sub-collection awaits in 2009.
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The double-vase. I think the form might be indigenous to Red Wing. It's an unusual concept for displaying flowers, but Red Wing issued several variations on the theme between 1940 and 1967. These two examples I picked up primarily because the price was right, but they have grown on me, earning prominent display space in my loft. The one on the left -- in the Fleck Nile Blue glaze (not my favorite, but less offensive on this vase) -- is by Charles Murphy. The chartreuse one on the right is by Belle Kogan. Both exhibit a modernist, organic, sculptural simplicity. Truth be told, I haven't yet displayed flowers in them -- I like them both simply as forms. Flowers would only muck them up. (So much for my preference for functional objects!)
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