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- Puerto Rican Pottery was one of two potteries (Iroquois/Sterling China's Caribe Pottery was the other) that established Mid Century Modern Pottery/Ceramics on the Island of Puerto Rico. The pottery operated from 1948–1966 in Santurce, Puerto Rico. It was a small pottery associated with and managed by master potter and ceramicist Hal Lasky (May 27, 1921- December 11, 2010). Lasky won scholarships in the early and mid-1940s at several prestigious ceramic arts programs: Dartmouth College, University of the Arts (Philadelphia) (where he studied under Aurelius Renzetti (1897–1975)), the ceramics school at Alfred University (Alfred, New York) and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Also, he exhibited at the Ceramic Nationals at Syracuse's Everson Museum of Art in both 1947 and 1948. In December 1947 Lasky was asked by Teodoro Moscoso, architect of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company's Operation Bootstrap, to come to Puerto Rico to manage a small ceramic operation the Puerto Rican government had recently established. The operation had been supervised originally by the husband and wife team of Edwin Scheier and Mary Goldsmith. In 1948 the operation was privatized and funded by a private bank. The pottery produced a line of hand crafted terra cotta dinnerware and artware. Common dinnerware shapes were mugs, cups, tumblers, plates, bowls (covered and uncovered), tureens, casserole dishes, trays, teapots and pitchers. Artware shapes included vases of various size, ashtrays, hooded candle holders, planters, incense pots, candelabra and lamp bases. The most common design patterns are sgraffito-- shapes, symbols, and stylized figures of fruit and animals. Less common are inscriptions in English and Spanish or contours of human faces. Colors used in the glazes ranged from red, red and black, blue, blue and green, black, green, yellow, peach, teal, turquoise, as well as other colors. Although all pieces were pressed not thrown, each piece was individually designed, painted and woodfired —unique forms of art on their own. Lasky developed a one step firing process that enabled him to produce pottery inexpensively and quickly. (en)
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