John Campbell & Sons pottery

[ Campbell history ]

 

Click image to enlarge.

John Campbell’s Launceston pottery had established itself as a maker of pipes, bricks, and household pottery well before the art-ware market boomed in the early 1930s. Like the neighbouring McHugh’s pottery, Campbell’s turned out a large quantity of 1930s artwares that sold well outside Tasmania. 

   The brownish majolica-glazed pieces at left could date back to the early 1900s. These are unsigned Tasmanian majolica-glazed wares, thought to be from Campbell’s, although judging from appearances, the colourful mottled flower bowl with stem holder might just as likely be an early McHugh piece.

   This streaky brown and green jug (shown from two aspects), with its Victorian-style handle is certainly earlier than 1930, and unsigned, though details of its construction and glaze point to Campbell’s (and possibly John Campbell himself) as its maker.

    The ribbed cylindrical vase at left may have made as early as the mid-1920s, according to information published for a similar specimen in the Shepparton Art Gallery. If that dating is accurate, it might be seen as marking the transition at Campbell’s from the older majolica style of decoration to the lighter, more ‘artistic’ style of the 1930s. But the old-fashioned majolica-glazed bowl below it is signed and dated 1932—an example of the pitfalls of trying to date pieces on stylistic grounds alone.

     Most of the remaining pieces have dates in the early to mid-1930s, while the green and amber-glazed vase at bottom is dated 1949. 
     Campbell’s art wares were generally wheel-thrown, strongly built and liberally glazed in flowing colours—greens and blues, primarily—usually with a characteristic streaked effect produced by tiny blue-white flecks suspended in the darker colour. Sometimes they were mottled, and sometimes both streaked and mottled. 
 

   Reds, browns,  yellows and even some pinks were also used. 


 

   Campbell’s also supplied the demand for ‘Australiana’ pottery, producing some gumnut-style pieces with appliqué decoration. There were also experiments that seem curiously ahead of their time, such as the unusual spotted vase at left, which has reminded some observers of a 1960s Lava Lamp.

   Campbell’s is best known for its green-glazed art-ware. The unmistakable ‘Campbell green’ is a thick, lively, silver-green translucence flecked with minute suspended particles of blue-white or turquoise. It is often streaked with olive or gold. The globe vase at left is a fine example from 1935 with an usual mark identifying it as one of a group made to order for the Radiant Art Pottery shop in Hobart. 

    Of all the decorative wares of the time, the Campbell green-glazed pieces most unaffectedly evoke the look and texture of  Australian bushland. One can gaze into this silver-green flow and be reminded of a stand of snowgums in the high country, or a flowing creek edged with wattles and eucalypts.

Acacia ('wattle') leaves

Free-flowing glaze on a Campbell vase

Eucalyptus leaves

    Who developed the recipe for this glaze and the technique of applying it? The answer does not appear in any book. It  seems to have originated at Campbell’s and stayed with Campbell’s. A family secret? John Campbell senior was remembered by his descendants as a tireless experimenter with shapes and glazes right up to his death in 1928.
    Perhaps it was Campbell senior who developed this distinctive glaze coloration; there are signs of this flecked green glaze being used at Campbell’s while he was still active (for example, in the green and brown streaked jug near the top of this page).

[ Campbell history ]