By Bill Stern
and Photographs by Peter Brenner
(Chronicle Books)

Pottery was for the patio, porcelain for the dinner table until the kilns of California began mass-producing and distributing imaginative, brightly
colored home and gardenwares in the late 1920s. Today, the inventive forms and playful shapes of California pottery make it a much sought-after and highly prized collectible. Published to coincide with the exhibition of the same name at the San Francisco Museum of Modern art, California Pottery is the ultimate guide to the cultural forces and talented designers that shaped this movement. Their work includes not only the dishware we have come to associate with California, but also garden and agricultural pottery and iconic decorative tiles. Each piece reflects the flavor of the times--from the sober Arts and Crafts style of the teens and '20s right through to the Modernist styles of the 40s and 50s. With beautiful photographs featuring hundreds of pieces, California Pottery: From Missions to Modernism is an exquisite gallery showcasing the beauty and originality of California pottery.