Americans infatuation with Mexico’s folk arts began in earnest in the 1920s. Magazines bombarded us with articles, traveling folk art exhibitions captured our hearts, and alluring travel guides beckoned us South of the Border. Additionally, major department stores, such as Macys in New York City and Chicago’s Leonards had entire rooms devoted to Mexican folk art. These were just some of the stimuli that whetted our appetites for Mexico’s arts and thus a long lasting love affair began.

Pottery has always been the leader and most produced art in Mexico and during the 1920s-1940s, collectors of clay flocked to the towns of Tonalá and Tlaquepaque, located just outside of Guadalajara, Jalisco. Because of the close proximity to rich clay deposits, pottery had been produced in this region for centuries and during the early 20^th century, Americans became completely enamored with a certain genre produced there—what we now refer to as Tourist Pottery.

Each piece of this pottery was handmade from the beginning to the end and the whole family was involved in the process. (Children often painted their first piece by age six). Initially, the clay had to be gathered, crushed, mixed, kneaded and dried until it reached just the right plasticity.  It was then the task of certain family members to begin modeling the clay into a variety of forms—jars, dinnerware plates, cups and saucers, pitchers and large platters, just to name a few.

Application of a slip (thin coat of color from watered down paint & clay) was the first step in the decorative process because this would become the pottery’s background color. The earthenware was either dipped into a container of slip or it was directly applied by hand with rags. The slip color choice was usually based on whatever happened to be mixed at the time, unless it was a commissioned piece, in which case the client’s personal preference prevailed. The palette of slip colors consisted of green, blue, terracotta, cinnamon, black, cream and yellow.

After the slip was dry, it was time for one of the family’s artists to begin the design phase. Using only homemade brushes from dog hairs, they worked totally freehand style. While this was not terribly difficult on flat surfaces, such as plates or platters, pieces of a circular form (i.e. jars, pitchers etc) required a lot of talent and skill to make all of the design elements align properly. It took years of practice to master painting in the round, but this region had some of the best pottery artists in Mexico during those years.

Design motifs came from several sources—the artist’s own imagination, events happening in everyday village life, postcards and magazine covers, and lastly from the urging of shop owners that catered to American tourists. When a particular design motif sold well, it was repeated over and over again, but never exactly the same.

To further embellish his design and fill the entire surface of the piece, artists oftentimes added series of crosshatched lines (known as petatillo), graining (multi-colored dots) or stars (known as “night”). Only the most skilled artists used the petatillo technique, introduced in the early 20th century because it required steady hands and a great deal of patience. The lines were added after the main design element and a slip of the hand or too much paint on the brush could cause the entire piece to be ruined.  

With the design process completed, the earthenware was fired once, allowed to cool, repainted totally with a coat of greta (varnish) and fired for the second time. After a successful firing and a cooling down period, pieces were transported to markets, sold by family members, or delivered to showrooms where eager buyers awaited.

Two of Tlaquepaque’s most important shops catering to the tourist trade were El Arte Tonalteca owned by J. Palacios Norman and a shop belonging to Josefina Arias. Norman was a master potter himself and a very savvy businessman. His shop was a rambling Spanish house built around a central courtyard, filled with studios, showrooms and bougainvillea draped patios. Artisans worked in full view of the shop’s patrons, which proved to be one of Norman’s best selling techniques. A tourist could sit, relax and have a cold drink in one of the many patios—all the while observing and chatting with the potters and artists at work. With such camaraderie and a better appreciation for the talented artists, it was difficult to leave without buying a few pieces of pottery.

Josefina Arias also employed artists to paint pottery in front of her shop. Her ads boasted “the largest assortment of pottery in Tlaquepaque.” With Americans fueling the hot market, Arias made sure that there were hundreds of pottery pieces available from which collectors could mix and match. Some of the best pieces in collections today bear an impressed mark of her shop---J. Arias.

During this heyday, Americans bought enormous quantities of Tourist Pottery. The variety was endless, the quality superb and the price was right. Many art critics, then and now, feel that this was a period of degradation in this region’s great pottery making traditions. But how can you argue with success? This particular genre sold and sold in the 1920s-1940s. Americans loved it and bought it by the carload then and here we are, some 80 years later, still enamored with it.

Few great pieces of Tourist Pottery surface in the antique marketplace today, but when they do---get out of the way before a collector or dealer knocks you down to grab it—and at prices a lot higher than Aunt Mary and Uncle Bob paid!

Suggested reading:

McMenamin, Donna. Popular Arts of Mexico: 1850-1950. Atglen, PA: Schiffer publishing, Ltd., 1996.

 Thompson, Amanda. Cerámica: Mexican Pottery of the 20^th Century. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2001