Colors on Clay brings to life the rich artistry, designers, and styles that brought the colorful tiles, bowls, plates, and other wares produced by the San José Workshops, in San Antonio, Texas, into prominence nationally. Intertwining art, personality profiles, and history, Susan Toomey Frost presents the first definitive account of this intriguing story.

Against the backdrop of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Great Depression, Ethel Wilson Harris and her talented designer, Fernando Ramos, became the driving forces behind three art tile factories--Mexican Arts and Crafts, San José Potteries, and Mission Crafts--known collectively as the San José Workshops, operating between 1931 and 1977. Together, Harris and Ramos with the arts and crafts division of the Work Projects Administration, they led the revival of revived a dying Mexican art in order to create tiles and artifacts that would become celebrated throughout the United States and prized in San Antonio and elsewhere for both public and private installations.

Harris, a savvy entrepreneur, recognized that San Antonio’s geography and culture created fertile ground for promoting traditional Mexican arts and crafts. She found inspiration for the workshops’ designs in scenes that spanned the Texas-Mexican border, creating lively depictions of Mexican folk culture and cowboy life. She hired and trained artisans to create work that followed her exacting standards for high quality of artistic rendition and production.

 

Fernando Ramos, Harris’s most talented and versatile employee, was born in Mexico City in 1913 and raised in San Antonio. Ramos was responsible for the majority of drawings upon which the tiles were based., The work that ranged from a simple portrait of a Mexican guitar player to complex scenes of festivals, fiestas, Mexican villages, and Texas ranch life. Larger scenes provided the basis for murals, tables, fountains, fireplaces, and other applications. Besides his artistic talents, Ramos had a flourishing career as a dancer, performing internationally and capturing a number of film roles.

Susan Toomey Frost draws on years of scholarship and collecting to provide not only the historical context for the tiles and pottery, but also a thorough account of production methods and advertising and sales techniques of the San José workshops. The wares have become in great demand to collectors throughout the United States in recent years.

With more than 300 illustrations of tiles and related clay objects, as well as never-before-seen tile sketches and historical photographs, Colors on Clay provides a well-researched and lively documentation of a previously unexamined aspect of Texas art.

Susan Toomey Frost is the leading authority on San José decorative art tiles and pottery produced by workshops in San Antonio and Mexico. She has taught English and linguistics at colleges and universities in Mexico and Texas. An avid collector, she has written articles, given lectures, and curated exhibitions. She lives in San Antonio. Her web site is at www.susanfrost.org.