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Vintage Napco Figurines
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The National Potteries Corporation, or Napco, was founded in Bedford, Ohio, in 1938. Although Ohio was a center for art pottery in the middle of the 20th century, being the home of Rookwood, Roseville, and Weller, Napco only produced its own...
The National Potteries Corporation, or Napco, was founded in Bedford, Ohio, in 1938. Although Ohio was a center for art pottery in the middle of the 20th century, being the home of Rookwood, Roseville, and Weller, Napco only produced its own products, most vases for flowers, for a handful of years. After World War II, Napco grew rapidly by importing collectible ceramic novelty items from Japan’s ceramics manufacturing centers of Nagoya and Seto. These included head vases modeled after similar ones designed Betty Harrington for Ceramic Arts Studio and Betty Lou Nichols Ceramics.
Due to this tough new competition from Napco, as well as from such importers as Ucagco and Enesco, Ceramic Arts Studio folded in 1955, while Nichols closed her shop in 1962. Napco itself was forced to endure competition in 1960, when Irwin Garber, one of Napco’s three founders, left the firm to establish International Art Ware Corporation (Inarco), which also imported glass and ceramics from Japan, including head vases that bore a striking resemblance to Garber’s wife, Roselle.
Napco and Napcoware pieces struck a chord with Americans, who were developing a serious sweet tooth for cutsey kitsch imported from Japan by a Chicago company called Lefton. So, in addition to head vases and wall pockets, Napco imported all sorts of Made in Japan Christmas figurines, from rosy-cheeked Santas to adorable angels and elves. Napco also distributed nursery-rhyme figurines and planters, a line called Miss Cutie Pie, birthday pieces (each featuring a different month), anthropomorphic salt-and-pepper shakers for the kitchen, and a host of small vases for around the home, some resembling cartoonish kitty cats, others depicting somewhat more regal-looking horses.
Although we know what Napco produced during the 1950s and ’60s, identifying Napco pieces from those decades can be tricky. The confusion is due to the fact that very few Napco pieces from this era were copyrighted, which meant that competitors such as Lefton often sold the exact same figurine as Napco and others—once the identifying paper label falls off, there is no way to tell the difference.
Nor were all Napco ceramic pieces imported during the 1950s and ’60s cartoony and kitsch. For example, Napco’s spaniel, Schnauzer, poodle, and terrier planters and figurines were quite realistic. On the other hand, the pink and white kitten figurines and planters imported by Napco are more in the spirit of the Miss Priss line of similar pieces imported by Lefton.
Vintage Napco birthday sets remain popular with collectors. Some featured small angels as figurines and planters representing either the signs of the zodiac or the months of the year. There were also flower girls in a range of getups pegged to months and their flowers—some of these flower girls were also produced as salt-and-pepper shakers. In a class of their own are the Calendar Cuties, in which ceramic toddlers stripped down almost to their birthday suits held patriotic items for July and jack-o-lanterns for October, the month of Halloween.
Napco also imported sporting figurines (a girl playing tennis, a boy in a football uniform, etc.); pixies sitting in daffodils for March and poinsettias for December; ceramic bells shaped like little girls in hoop skirts (some labeled for each day of the week); and figural jars for mustard, relish, jam, and cheese. The kitchen is actually the room for which most of Napco’s Miss Cutie Pie items were produced, be they eggs cups, labeled spice jars, salt-and-pepper shakers, cookie jars, or teapots, each decorated with the same big-eyed, open-mouthed cutie, topped with hair that varied from blond to brunette. Similar pieces swapped the Cutie Pie face for a smiling chef or granny with her reading glasses pulled down low on her cute-as-a-button nose.
Other Napco figures appeared to compete with Hummel products, as in the figurines of little boys singing, talking on the phone, playing a violin, or reading a newspaper. Napco also produced figurines of nuns playing the bongo drums and angels playing golf.
And then there were the head vases. To be sure, there were plenty of classic head vases (eyes shut, long eyelashes, a large horizontal hat), but Napco also imported women and girls with their eyes wide open, boy and girl “graduates” wearing black mortarboards, nuns, clowns, and celebrities such as Gloria Swanson and Esther Williams, all of whom could be placed around the home and filled with everything from orange gerbera daisies to wine-red roses.
Continue readingThe National Potteries Corporation, or Napco, was founded in Bedford, Ohio, in 1938. Although Ohio was a center for art pottery in the middle of the 20th century, being the home of Rookwood, Roseville, and Weller, Napco only produced its own products, most vases for flowers, for a handful of years. After World War II, Napco grew rapidly by importing collectible ceramic novelty items from Japan’s ceramics manufacturing centers of Nagoya and Seto. These included head vases modeled after similar ones designed Betty Harrington for Ceramic Arts Studio and Betty Lou Nichols Ceramics.
Due to this tough new competition from Napco, as well as from such importers as Ucagco and Enesco, Ceramic Arts Studio folded in 1955, while Nichols closed her shop in 1962. Napco itself was forced to endure competition in 1960, when Irwin Garber, one of Napco’s three founders, left the firm to establish International Art Ware Corporation (Inarco), which also imported glass and ceramics from Japan, including head vases that bore a striking resemblance to Garber’s wife, Roselle.
Napco and Napcoware pieces struck a chord with Americans, who were developing a serious sweet tooth for cutsey kitsch imported from Japan by a Chicago company called Lefton. So, in addition to head vases and wall pockets, Napco imported all sorts of Made in Japan Christmas figurines, from rosy-cheeked Santas to adorable angels and elves. Napco also distributed nursery-rhyme figurines and planters, a line called Miss Cutie Pie, birthday pieces (each featuring a different month), anthropomorphic salt-and-pepper shakers for the kitchen, and a host of small vases for around the home, some resembling cartoonish kitty cats, others depicting somewhat more regal-looking horses.
Although we know what Napco produced during the 1950s and ’60s, identifying Napco pieces from those decades can be tricky. The confusion is due to the fact that very few Napco pieces from this era were copyrighted, which meant that...
The National Potteries Corporation, or Napco, was founded in Bedford, Ohio, in 1938. Although Ohio was a center for art pottery in the middle of the 20th century, being the home of Rookwood, Roseville, and Weller, Napco only produced its own products, most vases for flowers, for a handful of years. After World War II, Napco grew rapidly by importing collectible ceramic novelty items from Japan’s ceramics manufacturing centers of Nagoya and Seto. These included head vases modeled after similar ones designed Betty Harrington for Ceramic Arts Studio and Betty Lou Nichols Ceramics.
Due to this tough new competition from Napco, as well as from such importers as Ucagco and Enesco, Ceramic Arts Studio folded in 1955, while Nichols closed her shop in 1962. Napco itself was forced to endure competition in 1960, when Irwin Garber, one of Napco’s three founders, left the firm to establish International Art Ware Corporation (Inarco), which also imported glass and ceramics from Japan, including head vases that bore a striking resemblance to Garber’s wife, Roselle.
Napco and Napcoware pieces struck a chord with Americans, who were developing a serious sweet tooth for cutsey kitsch imported from Japan by a Chicago company called Lefton. So, in addition to head vases and wall pockets, Napco imported all sorts of Made in Japan Christmas figurines, from rosy-cheeked Santas to adorable angels and elves. Napco also distributed nursery-rhyme figurines and planters, a line called Miss Cutie Pie, birthday pieces (each featuring a different month), anthropomorphic salt-and-pepper shakers for the kitchen, and a host of small vases for around the home, some resembling cartoonish kitty cats, others depicting somewhat more regal-looking horses.
Although we know what Napco produced during the 1950s and ’60s, identifying Napco pieces from those decades can be tricky. The confusion is due to the fact that very few Napco pieces from this era were copyrighted, which meant that competitors such as Lefton often sold the exact same figurine as Napco and others—once the identifying paper label falls off, there is no way to tell the difference.
Nor were all Napco ceramic pieces imported during the 1950s and ’60s cartoony and kitsch. For example, Napco’s spaniel, Schnauzer, poodle, and terrier planters and figurines were quite realistic. On the other hand, the pink and white kitten figurines and planters imported by Napco are more in the spirit of the Miss Priss line of similar pieces imported by Lefton.
Vintage Napco birthday sets remain popular with collectors. Some featured small angels as figurines and planters representing either the signs of the zodiac or the months of the year. There were also flower girls in a range of getups pegged to months and their flowers—some of these flower girls were also produced as salt-and-pepper shakers. In a class of their own are the Calendar Cuties, in which ceramic toddlers stripped down almost to their birthday suits held patriotic items for July and jack-o-lanterns for October, the month of Halloween.
Napco also imported sporting figurines (a girl playing tennis, a boy in a football uniform, etc.); pixies sitting in daffodils for March and poinsettias for December; ceramic bells shaped like little girls in hoop skirts (some labeled for each day of the week); and figural jars for mustard, relish, jam, and cheese. The kitchen is actually the room for which most of Napco’s Miss Cutie Pie items were produced, be they eggs cups, labeled spice jars, salt-and-pepper shakers, cookie jars, or teapots, each decorated with the same big-eyed, open-mouthed cutie, topped with hair that varied from blond to brunette. Similar pieces swapped the Cutie Pie face for a smiling chef or granny with her reading glasses pulled down low on her cute-as-a-button nose.
Other Napco figures appeared to compete with Hummel products, as in the figurines of little boys singing, talking on the phone, playing a violin, or reading a newspaper. Napco also produced figurines of nuns playing the bongo drums and angels playing golf.
And then there were the head vases. To be sure, there were plenty of classic head vases (eyes shut, long eyelashes, a large horizontal hat), but Napco also imported women and girls with their eyes wide open, boy and girl “graduates” wearing black mortarboards, nuns, clowns, and celebrities such as Gloria Swanson and Esther Williams, all of whom could be placed around the home and filled with everything from orange gerbera daisies to wine-red roses.
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