Brown County Pottery

A family named Griffith opened Brown County Pottery Works in the early 1930's. They hired a potter named Claude Graham. The Brown County Pottery Works made molded dinnerware, highly decorated with pine forests, dogwood flowers, deer and other Brown County Indiana images.

The pottery of Claude Graham is the highlight of the Pottery Works and is very collectible. Claude learned to make hand thrown pottery pieces on a wheel. The hand thrown pieces and the molded pieces often used the same decorations. Claude's pottery includes dinnerware, tiny animals, people, vases, flower pots, chocolate pots, lamps & tile.

After the war Graham started his own shop, Brown County Hills Pottery. His marks include "Brown County Pottery", "B.C.P." & "Brown County Hills Pottery".

Graham's dogwood pieces used a raised pattern with each petal formed separately or painted freehand. He also added apples, grapes and bittersweet decorations. He used molds only on large items such as clam shells and flower pots.

Another Brown County Pottery apprentice, Karl Martz, opened a studio with his wife, Becky Brown, in Nashville, Indiana. After the war Mr. Martz was named head of the ceramics program at the newly founded Indiana University School of Fine Arts.
He was a world renowned potter and some of his students picked up the "Brown County Pottery" style.

The following people were designers for Brown County Pottery or Brown County Hills Pottery: Carolyn Ondreicha, Mary Jane Terkhorn, Eva & Geneva & Iva Harden.