Visual art
Mary Chase Perry Stratton
1867–1961 · ceramic artist, founder of Pewabic Pottery
Ceramic artist who co-founded Pewabic Pottery in 1903, whose iridescent tiles decorate the Guardian Building, the DIA and churches across Detroit.
- Born
Hancock, Michigan- Died
aged 94- Birth name
- Mary Chase Perry
- Also known as
- Mary Chase Perry
- Detroit years
- 1880s–1961
- Field
- Visual art
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Mary Chase Perry was born in Hancock in the Upper Peninsula and came to the Detroit area as a young teenager after her father's death. She took her first art classes at the school of the Detroit Museum of Art and made her name painting china. In 1903 she and her neighbor Horace Caulkins, who had developed a kiln for dental work, founded Pewabic Pottery in a carriage house behind the Ransom Gillis House in today's Brush Park. The business grew fast, and in 1907 it moved into a Tudor Revival studio on East Jefferson Avenue designed by William Buck Stratton, whom she married in 1918. Pewabic became famous for luminous iridescent glazes, and its tiles went into the Guardian Building, the Detroit Public Library, the DIA, the Cathedral Church of St. Paul and the Scott Fountain on Belle Isle. She founded the ceramics program at the University of Michigan and taught at Wayne State. Pewabic still works in its original building, now a National Historic Landmark.
Highlights
- Co-founded Pewabic Pottery with Horace Caulkins in 1903
- Pewabic building on East Jefferson (1907) is a National Historic Landmark
- Pewabic tile in the Guardian Building, DIA and Detroit Public Library
- Founded the University of Michigan's ceramics program
- Charter member of the Detroit Society of Women Painters and Sculptors
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Founded · 1907–1961
Pewabic Pottery
The pottery's home since 1907, a National Historic Landmark; now a nonprofit with classes, a gallery and a shop.
Founded · 1903–1907
Ransom Gillis House carriage house (first Pewabic studio)
Closed · 1903–1907
Pewabic's first workshop was in the carriage house behind this Victorian Gothic mansion on John R Street; the pottery left in 1907.
Related place · 1928–1929
Guardian Building
Art Deco skyscraper whose lobby and exterior use Pewabic tile; she worked on its symbolic decoration.