J.B. Owens Pottery - Native American Portrait

John Owens started making art pottery around 1885 in Roseville, Ohio. He built a large manufacturing plant in Zanesville and moved there in 1891. Around 1905 much of the company’s output began to focus on tile production. Owens pottery completely ceased art pottery production in 1907. The company went out of business in 1929, at the time of the stock market crash/Great Depression.

Edward S. Curtis (1868 – 1952) began taking his famous photographs of Native Americans in 1895. Many potteries of the time began using Curtis’ and other photographers’ images of Native Americans as a source for some of their hand-decorated pots.

This photo of a Great Plains Kiowa-Apache was taken/created by Charles F. Fish and is entitled “Portrait of Chief Pacer's Son in Native Dress with Pipe-Tomahawk, 1889” – Smithsonian Institute.

Thus this example, from the Owens “Utopian” line, dates after 1889 and before 1907. The jug is seven inches tall. It is entitled “Pacer’s Son” and has the cipher of the artist, A.F. Best.