Common Clay
The American Terra Cotta Company was founded in 1881 in Terra Cotta, Illinois. The above image are of animal head busts that once adorned the Stock Pavilion on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. This image was included in the company's journal, Common Clay, from the October, 1920 edition.
Contemporary Terra Cotta Works
Further Research
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Bars & Blades : a History of TC Industries, 1881-2006 byCall Number: Q. 721.04430973 B459bPublication Date: 2008
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Common Clay : a History of American Terra Cotta Corporation, 1881-1966
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This is the definitive history of American Terra Cotta Corporation, the company that made TECO pottery – and much more. Founded in 1881 by William D. Gates, the company operated for eighty-five years in the little town of Terra Cotta, Illinois, manufacturing architectural terra cotta (Latin for “burnt earth”) for more than 8,000 buildings in the United States and Canada. Much of the company’s production went into buildings designed by Prairie School architects including so-called “jewel box” banks by Louis Sullivan and buildings by the firm of Purcell & Elmslie scattered throughout the Midwest. (via Turn of the Century Editions)
Call Number: Q. 721.04430973 B459cPublication Date: 2003 -
The Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture in Early Modern Europe
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Chapters present a broad geographical perspective showcasing examples of modelling, firing, painting, and gilding of clay in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The volume considers known artworks by celebrated artists, such as Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio, Filipe Hodart, or Hans Reichle, in parallel with several lesser-studied terracotta sculptures and tin-glazed earthenware made by anonymous artisans. This book challenges arbitrary distinctions into the fine art and the applied arts, that obscured the image of artistic production in the early modern world. The centrality of clay in the creative processes of artists working with two- and three-dimensional artefacts comes to the fore. The role of terracotta figures in religious practices, as well as processes of material substitutions or mimesis, confirm the medium’s significance for European visual and material culture in general. (via Routledge)
ISBN: 9781032355702Publication Date: 2023 -
Practical Building Conservation: Earth, Brick and Terracotta
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Earth, Brick and Terracotta deals with fired and unfired clay products. It considers their technological evolution, the processes causing deterioration and how these should be assessed and the methods used for their repair and maintenance. (via Routledge)
Call Number: 720.288 Ea767ISBN: 9780754645535Publication Date: 2016 -
Sullivanesque
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Highly regarded in architecture for inspiring the Chicago School and the Prairie School, Louis Sullivan was an unwilling instigator of the method of facade composition--later influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, William Gray Purcell, and George G. Elmslie--that came to be known as Sullivanesque. Decorative enhancements with botanical and animal themes, Sullivan's distinctive ornamentation mitigated the hard geometries of the buildings he designed, coinciding with his "form follows function" aesthetic. (via University of Illinois Press)
Call Number: Q. 720.977311 Sch566sISBN: 9780252027260Publication Date: 2002 -
Terra Cotta by TERRA COTTA began through a process of reflection on my work from the last few years, particularly following the Derek Hill Fellowship at the British School at Rome. I made an open invitation to the contributors (in whose work I also saw women, motherhood, community, architecture, food, nurture, among other things) to respond to: TERRA COTTA as the material that serves to bind the thoughts and ideas together. Terracotta as part of the ground, as a container or vessel, as a protective material, as cladding, as a transformed material, as a colour and as something that is both fragile and strong at the same time. Beyond terracotta, the themes I have been working around include: Architecture, power, the body, skin, façades, cladding, women, communities (of women) consuming, decaying, control, making, building and inhabiting. Rome itself has been so important for all kinds of reasons, hence the Italian title. Incidentally, Cotta also means a kind of religious garment and to have a crush. Terra is land. Cotta here also means cooked of course, like a panna cotta. Cooked Land? (via Emily Speed)
Call Number: Vault 709.04 T275ISBN: 978-1-5272-3992Publication Date: 2019 -
The Terracotta Designs of Alfred Waterhouse
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The Natural History Museum in London is one of Britain's finest examples of late Victorian architecture at its exuberant height. A decorative tour de force, it was conceived by Alfred Waterhouse, whose attention to detail in the creation of this masterpiece is legendary. The terracotta mouldings of flora and fauna adorning both interior and exterior of the building rival in richness and variety the equally renowned contents of the Museum's collections.
This book presents a history of the development of Waterhouse's designs for these mouldings, setting them in the context of his work as a whole and of their manufacture. It acknowledges his courage in selecting the generally frowned upon medium of terracotta for the execution of the ornament, rather than the established and respected material of carved stone. It also provides a unique document of his exquisite pencil drawings for the individual blocks: although many of the drawings were destroyed when their practical use had expired, over 130 still survive, and are held in the Museum's Library. Seldom seen and never reproduced in their entirety, they bear witness to the fact that Waterhouse was not only a skilled architect but also an extremely accomplished draughtsman. This is a unique portrait of an ornamental scheme which influenced a generation at the end of the nineteenth century. (via Google Books)
Call Number: 729.5 W292cISBN: 0471489492Publication Date: 2000
