Frederick Hurten Rhead

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Frederick Hurten Rhead (1880-1942) was born in Hanley, Staffordshire, England into a family of potters. His father, who was also called Frederick, trained at the Minton pottery before working for a number of firms including his own. Frederick Hurten's siblings included Charlotte Rhead, a talented designer. Before emigrating to the United States of America in 1902, Rhead served an apprenticeship under his father and also taught art in Longton.

Rhead worked in many American potteries, starting in Ohio. He moved to an arts and crafts pottery attached to a sanatorium in Marin County, California where he introduced slip trailing (a technique also associated with his sister Charlotte). Rhead's methods were not regarded as economic, and he left the Arequipa Pottery in 1913. In 1927 he was hired as Art Director of the Homer Laughlin China Company which is located in Newell, West Virginia. Rhead held this position until his death in 1942.

During his long tenure as Art Director at the Homer Laughlin China Company Rhead conceived, invented, and designed a line of glazed dinnerware based on a stylized Art Deco spherical theme, and originally glazed in five different solid colors. The line was named Fiesta and was first introduced to the public in January of 1936. Fiesta dinnerware was an immediate success and the Homer Laughlin Company expanded this line with new serving pieces and additional place pieces, and eventually new glaze colors as well. Fiesta went on to become the best selling line of dinnerware, and was a true fad in the United States for over ten years. Sometime after Rhead's death, and due to the war, and the research and development of the atom bomb, the United States Government took control of all uranium, an oxide of which was necessary to produce the vibrant orange-red glaze of Fiesta. Without that key color, and with the severe reduction in variety of open-stock items available, the appeal of the line was hurt. Consumer interest in, and sales of, the line did remain strong for some time, but in spite of the introduction of a new palette of glaze colors, sales progressively declined over the following twenty-seven years until the entire line was finally discontinued in January of 1973. But after an absence of thirteen years, the line was subsequently revived in an altered clay body and glaze composition, and although some original Rhead-designed vintage Fiesta casting molds were used in production of the new ware, most shapes had to be slightly altered, or completely redesigned to meet the requirements of the new materials being used. However, in Fiesta, Rhead's original concept and basic shape styling remains today as a testament to his talent. This second incarnation of Fiesta dinnerware was first marketed in early 1986 to capitalize on the 50th anniversary of the original line's introduction and it has remained in continuous production since that year.

Though some have criticized Rhead for not being an original creative artist, he was in fact a great innovator in pottery manufacturing techniques and he was very talented at refining and improving on existing style ideas and designs. For example the idea of different mixed solid colors on dinnerware was actually first done by Catalina Pottery in California in the early 1930s, and soon imitated by Bauer pottery there, but the idea taken up by Rhead and made his own in the designs and shapes of Fiesta is what eventually came to be the most successful and widely known of all solid color dinnerware.

Frederick Hurten Rhead died in New York City in November of 1942 from cancer.

External Reference Dale, Sharon Frederick Hurten Rhead

Persondata
NAME	Rhead, Frederick Hurten
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	potter
DATE OF BIRTH	1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	England
DATE OF DEATH	November 1942
PLACE OF DEATH	New York City