Fiesta Tableware...perhaps the most identifiable brand to emerge from the "California" pottery craze of the 1930s, and the most resilient and long-lasting. California and the Spanish-Revival movement started in the early 20th-century with architecture, furniture, and household goods. It harkened back to the pastoral fantasy of what modern Americans thought Colonial or "Mission" California was. Simplicity in form was prized on some levels, and complexity, particularly in architecture, created buildings that were seen as models that very well could stand in for structures in Mexico City or Madrid.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, various brands of dishes or "pottery" were marketed to the American consumer as having that old "California" or "Spanish" flavor, patterns that might have been seen in the old Mission days. Catalina Pottery, J.A. Bauer Pottery, Pacific Pottery, Gladding McBean & Co., these were just a few of the many companies creating tableware under the umbrella of California pottery, which emphasized roots in the early colonial days of California's past. Most of these companies had an actual presence in California, and the pottery was manufactured in the "Golden State". It is strange that the one brand of California pottery that was outlasted and outshined every other was never in California, never manufactured their wares in California...but branded their product as California none the less...
Homer Laughlin was the man that made Fiesta Tableware an American historical reality. Along with his designer Frederick Rhead (an extremely and highly regarded figure in the Arts and Crafts artistic movement of the early 20th century), they created and produced one of the longest lasting material culture products in U.S. history. Piggybacking on the popularity of the California Pottery design, look and mystique, Fiesta pottery incorporated all the elements of the look that made it so popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Colorful, bright, glazed, with shapes that epitomized simplicity with a seeming fusion of Art Deco and Streamline Modern, Fiesta was unveiled and hit the market in 1936. It came in five original colors, Red (or what has come to be known as "Uranium" orange), blue (or cobalt), green (not deep, but more of a lighter shade), yellow (deep, golden), and old ivory (yellowish, like aged ivory). Originally manufactured in West Virginia (about as far from California as you can get), Fiesta tableware appropriated California Spanish themes and culture, catering to what the market desired and becoming the most recognizable and popular brand representing the mid-century California pottery movement and style.
The Original Colors
