Tyg

Roberta Beverly Kennon decorated this three-handled tyg with stylized blue tulips while working as a decorator a Newcomb Pottery in 1904. She complemented the floral motif with a verse from the popular poem Lalla Rookh, written by Thomas Moore in 1817: "Tulip- Beds of Different Shape and Dyes, Bending Beneath the Invisible West-Winds Sighs."



Kennon was one of the many women who were trained as artists and skilled decorators at Newcomb Pottery during the first few decades of the twentieth century. The pottery was established as part of the arts program at Sophia Newcomb College, a school founded to educated women and provide them with a means to financially support themselves. Kennon attended Newcomb College and graduated with a Normal Arts degree in 1898. She continued on to the graduate art program in 1899 and worked at the pottery from 1901-1905.





While each piece was thrown by Newcomb Pottery’s potter, Joseph Meyer, the embellishment was determined and executed by the women decorators. It was these graphic compositions—often of stylized flora and nature scenes distinct to the South—that brought Newcomb Pottery to the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900 and eventually popularized their work throughout the United States.