Overbeck Sisters

Margaret attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati in the 1890s. She also studied with the influential designer, Arthur Wesley Dow, of Columbia University, and with Marshall Fry, a New York china painter and potter.[8][9] Margaret may have taught art to her younger sisters before she began work as an art instructor at private schools, including the Sayre Institute in Lexington, Kentucky, and Megguier Seminary in Boonville, Missouri. In 1899 Margaret took a faculty position at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where she taught art, but left the university in 1907 after suffering serious head injuries in an automobile accident in Chicago, Illinois. Margaret returned to the family home in Cambridge City to recuperate.[8][10]

In addition to her work as an art teacher, Margaret exhibited a watercolor at the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904.[11] She was also a contributor to Keramic Studio, a china-painting publication. Her designs appeared in several issues of the specialty magazine between 1903 and 1913, most notably the March 1907 issue.[8][12]

After working at a Zanesville, Ohio, pottery studio during the summer of 1910,[10] Margaret returned home to Cambridge City, where she established an art-pottery studio with her sisters, Elizabeth, Hannah, and Mary Frances. Margaret is generally credited with the idea of the sisters establishing Overbeck Pottery in the family's Cambridge City home.[9] She lived long enough to see the business established in early 1911, but died in Cambridge City on August 13, 1911, of complications attributed to her earlier injury in an automobile accident.[8][13]

Hannah initially studied photography with her older sister, Ida, before attending Indiana State Normal School (present-day Indiana State University) in Terre Haute, Indiana. After her graduation from college in 1894, Hannah taught school for a year in Clinton, Indiana, but ill health forced her to return home.[8][9]

Hanna was a skilled sketch artist, who also painted with watercolors. From 1904 to 1916 she contributed designs to Keramic Studio. At the Overbeck pottery studio Hannah and her sister, Mary Frances, were primarily responsible for the pottery's decorative designs. Her original design motifs were inspired from nature. She also made hand-formed pottery without the use of a potter's wheel.[13][14] Chronic neuritis during the final years of her life made it difficult for Hannah to hold a pencil and draw, but she continued to work on designs until her death on August 28, 1931.[1][15]

Elizabeth was an art student of her sister, Margaret. During 1909–10 Elizabeth studied ceramics under the direction of Charles Fergus Binns at the New York School for Clayworking (the present-day New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University) in Alfred, New York.[10]

Elizabeth, the technician of the Overbeck pottery enterprise, was the only one of the sisters to use a potter's wheel to form her pottery.[9] In addition, she formulated and mixed the ceramic glazes, as well as supervising kiln operations. Elizabeth became especially known for her innovative pottery forms and her skills in developing new glazes and ceramic processes.[16] She died on December 1, 1936, leaving her younger sister, Mary Frances, to continue making pottery on her own.[1] 

Mary Frances, along with her sister, Margaret, studied with Arthur Wesley Dow and Marshall Fry.[14] Mary Frances may also have studied at Indiana State Normal School. Trained as an artist in the mediums of oil, watercolor, and pen-and-ink illustration, Mary Frances's specialty was bird paintings. She also became well known for her bookplate designs.[17] Prior to establishing the pottery studio in Cambridge City with her sisters, Mary Frances taught in the public schools at Boulder, Colorado, and at Cambridge City and Centerville, Indiana. Between 1904 and 1916 Mary Frances contributed flower studies that were published in Keramic Studio.[14]

Mary Frances and her sister, Hannah, designed and decorated the Overbeck sisters' pottery. Their primary role was to paint, finish, and decorate the pottery before Elizabeth fired them in the kiln behind their home. Mary Frances's decorations were highly stylized, mostly geometric designs. She also created unique, one-of-a-kind, handmade pottery forms without using a potter's wheel.[9][11] In addition, she created small figurines of people, animals, and birds. Mary Frances and her sisters also created fanciful, 4-inch (10 cm) to 5-inch (13 cm) figures they called "grotesques." Mary Frances referred to these small, figural caricatures of people and animals as "humor of the kiln."[17][18] Mary Frances continued to operate Overbeck Pottery after the deaths of her sisters, but she primarily focused on making decorative figurines instead of large ceramic pieces. She died on March 20, 1955.[19]

Harriet Jane Overbeck trained as a musician in Chicago, Illinois; Cincinnati, Ohio; and at Leipzig, Germany. She was also proficient in French, German, and Italian languages. Harriett gave private lessons in music and foreign languages at the family home in Cambridge City in addition to her role as housekeeper for her sisters. She died in 1947.[7][20]

Ida Alice, the eldest sister, was the only sister to marry. She established a photography studio in Cambridge City around 1890, and married Martin Funk in 1893. Ida was not involved in the Overbeck pottery business.[3][7] She died in 1946.

Charles Borger Overbeck, the youngest sibling, was a graduate of Purdue University and became an engineer. He died in 1913. Charles and his wife, Hallie, had two children, Virginia and Charles Jr.[3][21]

The Overbeck sisters established their ceramic arts studio in their Cambridge City home in 1911, when the Arts and Crafts movement was expanding in the United States.[22] The movement "afforded middle-class women a profession which was considered respectable and a path into the art community at large," and china painting was viewed as an appropriate artistic activity for "genteel women" to pursue.[11] At that time the center of the Arts and Crafts pottery movement in the United States was Cincinnati, Ohio, where the Rookwood Pottery Company, the best-known of the movement's potteries, was established in 1878.[23]

The American potteries employed women workers, but these businesses were usually owned and managed by men.[11] What made the Overbeck sisters unusual was their intention to produce "an entirely American product, untainted by reference to foreign art and decorative arts."[14] Their goal was to produce high-quality, original artwork with motifs inspired by nature. The Overbecks also placed an emphasis on original designs and experimentation in their work.[24] The small pottery enterprise was also the sisters' primary source of income. The frugal women handled the artistic operation and the financial aspects of the business themselves, and as a result of their efforts they made a modest living from the sales of their art and were economically independent.[10]

The Overbecks trained as artists, and Margaret, Hannah, and Mary had additional training as china painters. However, at the time they established their ceramics studio, the women were inexperienced in pottery-making, even though a number of their early designs had been published in Keramic Studio.[10] When Margaret died in 1911, the same year the women established their studio, Elizabeth, Hannah, and Mary Frances carried on the work. The studio operated with division of labor among the sisters. The sisters set up a design studio on the main floor of their home, a ceramics workshop in the basement, and a coal-fired kiln in a small shed behind the house. Elizabeth created the shapes, while Hannah and Mary Frances created the designs and decorated the pottery.[14] The industrious women lived simply and used only basic tools for their artwork. Although Elizabeth made some wheel-thrown pottery, most of their ceramics were handmade using the coil method.[9] The Overbeck Pottery closed in 1955 when Mary Frances died.[11]

Because their ceramics were handmade pieces, output was modest, as was the income the sisters earned from their work. In addition to the sales made from the showroom at their home/studio in Cambridge City, outside sales came almost exclusively from L. S. Ayres and Company, a department store in Indianapolis, Indiana, and commissions from individual buyers. To supplement earnings from the sales of their art, the sisters taught ceramics classes during the summer in their home at Cambridge City. Elizabeth also taught ceramics classes in Richmond, Indiana. In addition, they gave demonstrations to women's groups around Indiana. They also created and sold their other handiwork, which included furniture, jewelry, knitted goods, tie-dyed fabrics, enameled copper, and lacework.[25][26]

Growth was slow because they "could afford little advertising."[3] Most of the notoriety for their pottery and distinctive matte glazes came from word-of-mouth publicity, publication of their designs, through exhibitions, and recognition from the awards they received. Keramic Studio publish their designs, as well as the instructions to create them.[27][28] The sisters regularly exhibited their art at the Indiana State Fair, where they won several prizes. They also won awards for their entries at the Richmond art fair in 1927 and the Indiana Artists Exhibition in Indianapolis in 1928 and 1928. The sisters were also the recipients of an honorable mention at the Robineau Memorial Ceramic Exhibition at Syracuse, New York, in 1934.[29]

As with other artists of the Arts and Crafts movement, the Overbecks strived to produce simple, functional objects that were handmade, beautiful, and inspired by nature. All of the Overbeck Pottery pieces were hand crafted. No mass-produced products or assembly lines were used, and each piece was unique. Their functional pieces, which included teapots, tea sets, pitchers, vases, and bowls, were mostly undecorated except for glazes. The sisters also produced decorative pieces, as well as small figurines and fanciful figures they called "grotesques," which were popular with buyers.[9][30]

The sisters' designs were Art Nouveau and later, Art Deco styles. They also experimented with glazes, keeping the formulations they used a secret, and destroyed any pieces that did not turn out as they had planned. While the Overbeck sisters have been recognized for their experiments with glazes, especially their early work that included matte glazes in subdued tones, in later years they produced pieces of more modern styles and developed shiny glazes with brighter hues. Robin's-egg blue became a signature color.[17][18]

The sisters initially used clay from their Jackson Township farm and from the property behind their Cambridge City home. They also obtained clay from Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Delaware.[24] To produce their pottery the sisters' designs were created on paper, transferred to damp clay forms, and decorated and glazed before the final step of firing the pieces in the kiln. Favored motifs were plants, trees, birds, and animals found in the Midwest.[18][31] Until Elizabeth's death in 1936, the Overbeck sisters marked their pieces with "OBK" and often included the initials of the potter and the decorator: "E" for Elizabeth, "H" for Hannah, and "F" for Mary Frances. After Elizabeth's death, Overbeck pottery was marked with the monogram, either alone or with an "F" or "MF" for Mary Frances.[17][32]