Gold Over Red Pottery Box Signed 'Gene Lodi 305' | ||
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Posted 5 years ago
ho2cultcha
(5051 items)
I found this ceramic box in Berkeley today. It's painted a very thick gold over bright red with a bright red interior. I think it's signed 'Gene Lodi 305'. does any of this look familiar to anyone? one corner is a little damaged.
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I love the work of Gene Lodi but, unfortunately, there is zero information about who this is. Occasionally the pieces will also be inscribed "Calif", so whoever Lodi is, he was located somewhere in California. I'm reasonably sure the work date from the 1970s. The gold, by the way, unless it has been altered, is a fired-on glaze, not paint.
OOdles of his stuff online. Most is listed as 1950's. Several of the items I looked at had the exact same signature and attributed his work to the California Art Pottery Company others associated him with the California Art Products Company (1940's) they made gift wares.
wow! thank you so much artfoot and fhrjr2! great info! i'd never heard of him. but i do love the glaze on this piece.
Indeed, there are some great pictures of his work online. A good number of them are pieces I've sold and he has long been a favorite. I have tried, on and off, for probably twenty-five years looking for information about Gene Lodi. In Jack Chipman's "California Pottery Scrapbook", Lodi is tossed into the '50s but Chipman admits that he doesn't really know and hedges into the '60s. (Probably a good place to start - those heavy gold glazes started showing up in Haeger catalogs around 1967.) Gene Lodi is not mentioned in Lehner. But, speaking of Lehner, according to that source California Art Products Inc. (the closest I could come) existed for a little over two years in the late 1940s before changing their name. I can't say that I am familiar with their products other than the "Orchard Ware" dinnerware which is about as opposite of Gene Lodi that you can get.
I should reiterate - it has been a while since I've done any serious searching and have been out of the pottery loop for some time. Still, I think it's a stretch to connect Gene Lodi with California Art Products (or Southern California Art Products). I would love to hear it if any definite connection has been established.
I have often described Lodi's work as Abstract Expressionist, an art style surfacing in the late 1940s that faced public scorn for twenty years before getting any respect. To my thinking, it seems unlikely that the style would appear in California florist ceramics simultaneously with the New York art. More likely that it appeared twenty or so years later.
Anyway, an appeal to anyone - please let us know if you have any information about Gene Lodi.
I found an article online that tells a bit about Gene Lodi.
Lodi News Sentinel
May 29 1952
Ceramics Shown at City Library
Lodi Public Library has on display the cermaics of Glenn Collins, son of Mr, and Mrs. Jack Johnston, who graduated from Lodi Union High School in 1943. Collins, who works under the trade name Gene Lodi, is presently associated with Robert Coslette of Santa Monica. All of the ceramics he turns out are of his own design.
The objects on exhibition in the library are "crackleware" and include two duck that are covered by 22-karat gold, a cigarette case, several ashtrays and a rooster that holds a small cactus plant in its back.
Also in the case is a copy of "Giftwares" which has on its cover a photograph of a few of Collins' works. Two pamphlets describing his ceramics and those of the company he works for are included.
Collins has sold several large orders to stores in Los Angeles and his work is becoming increasingly popular there.
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I too, have a piece of Gene Lodi's, a large "fruit Bowl", at least that's what my mother kept in it when I was very young in the 50s.