From its founding in Trenton in 1889 as the Ceramic Art Company to the closing of its last New Jersey factory in 2005, Lenox has been associated with the finest porcelain made in the United States.  Lenox made its mark early in the 1900s producing exclusive china designs for America's finest retailers and jewelry stores.  Since 1918, Lenox has also been the manufacturer of the official White House china, and examples of three presidential services (Wilson, Truman and Reagan) will be on display as part of this exhibition.

The Lenox Legacy: America's Greatest Porcelain, 1889–2005 will showcase highlights of the century–old tradition of Lenox porcelain in the Newark Museum's collection, from the first gifts in 1911 to the 2007 donation of the Lenox Archives by Brown-Forman, Inc.  The galleries will provide an elegant setting for unique hand-enameled porcelain vases and dinner plates by William Morley, Sigmund Wirkner and Hans Nosek, minutely detailed and rare porcelain figurines by Patricia Eakin, and modern designs from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.  A centerpiece of the exhibition will be one of only two known porcelain busts of Walter Scott Lenox himself, modeled in 1917 by Isaac Broome.  Fittingly set in the Museum's Walter Scott Lenox Pavilion (funded in 1989 by Brown-Forman, Inc.), Mr. Lenox's bust will be surrounded by large, undecorated Victorian vessels of pure ivory porcelain.  These ghostly vessels will be a reminder of the vanished era when porcelain was art, and when Trenton was the center of porcelain making in the Western Hemisphere.

Click here for the Lenox Legacy video podcast and audio tour.

Images:

Banner (detail): Dinner plate in moderne style, Frank G. Holmes for Lenox China for Tiffany & Co., 1938, porcelain, enamel, gold, Gift of Dr. Harold H. Kelsey in Memory of Arthur V. Colletti, 2002

Above (left): Porcelain basket from the 1910 Modern American Pottery exhibition at Newark Museum, Made by James Shelton for Ceramic Art Company, Trenton, ca. 1900.  Gift of Walter Scott Lenox, 1911

Bottom (left to right):
Lavender–ground presentation vase with a portrait of Marie Antoinette, Decorated by Hans Nosek for Ceramic Art Company, Trenton, 1905, Purchase 2006 W. Clark Symington Bequest Fund

Bust of John Augustus Roebling, Isaac Broome for Lenox China, 1909, porcelain.  Gift of Ferdinand W. Roebling, 1911

Gold–ground porcelain vase with jeweled enameling, Decorated by Sigmund Wirkner for Ceramic Art Company, Trenton, ca. 1900, Gift of Brown Forman, Incorporated, 2006