Onion teapot

John Prip is a pivotal figure in the history of American studio silver. Born in New York to a Danish metalsmithing family, Prip was a fourth-generation metalsmith familiar from childhood with workshop activities. His family returned to Denmark while Prip was a young child; he later attended Copenhagen Technical College, where for five years he was apprenticed to Evald Nielson, graduating in 1942. He continued to build on his considerable technical skills between 1945 and 1948 while working for the family business and other Danish concerns. In 1948, at age twenty-six, he was recruited to head the metals department at the newly founded School for American Craftsmen (SAC) in Alfred, New York.

The school was an outgrowth of several crafts organizations spearheaded by Aileen Osborn Webb (1892 – 1979), founder of the Handicraft League of America, the American Craftsman’s Council, and the Contemporary Craft Museum (now the Museum of Arts & Design). Webb’s concern with the loss of traditional craft techniques, coupled with the return of many veterans in need of job training or rehabilitation, led to the school’s creation in 1948. In their choice of Prip, the school was fortunate to engage an artist who had been thoroughly trained in all aspects of metalsmithing yet was willing to explore new forms and challenge functional aspects of the craft.

Prip left SAC in 1954 to pursue consulting and design work. He worked for a few years at Shop One, an early craft gallery that he established with professor and furnituremaker Tage Frid, potter Frans Wildenhain, and former student silversmith Ron Pearson. He taught during the early 1960s at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, during the tenure of Joseph Sharrock, while continuing to search for a different manner in which to express himself.

It was in the short-lived role of designer-craftsman that Prip saw the next chapter of his career unfold. Upon the recommendation of James S. Plout, first director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, to Roger Hallowell, then company president, he joined Reed & Barton, the silver manufacturer based in Taunton, Massachusetts. Following developments at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning in the late 1920s, Plout had created a Design in Industry department in 1948 to foster partnerships between rising designers and manufacturers. Reed & Barton was the first company to participate, and Ronald Hayes Pearson (1924 – 1996), Prip’s colleague from SAC, was among the first “Institute Associates” of 1955. It was through these associations that Prip’s name came forward as company designer.

During his tenure as designer/craftsman-in-residence, Prip produced several designs for domestic wares that marked the brief union of craftsmen with industry during the 1950s and 1960s. This teapot, called the “onion teapot” by the artist, was made in Rochester in 1954. It was shown in 1957 to Reed & Barton as an example of Prip’s abilities. Shortly after he joined the company, the teapot became a signature piece for the production of Dimension hollowware and flatware. The technical skills needed to create the teapot exemplify Prip’s exacting Danish training. However, his form and design solutions, such as the extended hinge and the tension achieved in the attenuated accents of the handle and finial, mark him as an innovative silversmith of first rank.

In 1963 Prip joined the faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he taught until his retirement in 1980. He retained his affiliation with Reed & Barton, however, producing the Tapestry flatware pattern in 1964. He retired from the company in 1970.

This text has been adapted from "Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000," edited by Jeannine Falino and Gerald W.R. Ward, published in 2008 by the MFA. Complete references can be found in that publication.

In the second half of the twentieth century, large silver manufacturers primarily produced hollowware and flatware in patterns evocative of historical styles. Many consumers, perhaps recognizing silver's longstanding role as an emblem of wealth and family, seemed comfortable with tea sets and other objects in traditional modes. This teapot represents a departure from that attitude.Reed and Barton of Taunton, Massachusetts, founded in 1827,  began to experiment with contemporary forms in the 1950s. James S. Plaut, the first director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, introduced a Design in Industry department in 1948 that struck a responsive chord with Roger Hallowell, then president of Reed and Barton. Plaut recommended John Prip as a good candidate to advise Reed and Barton on ways to strengthen the relationship between designer-craftsmen and manufacturers. Born and trained as a silversmith in Denmark, Prip had been recruited in 1948 to establish the metals department at the newly founded School for American Craftsmen in upstate New York. Prip's handcrafted Onion teapot, made in 1954, produced a favorable reaction when shown as a prototype to Reed and Barton in 1957. It subsequently became the basis for the company's Dimension production line. Prip's fruitful collaboration with Reed and Barton continued until 1970.This text was adapted from Ward, et al., MFA Highlights: American Decorative Arts & Sculpture (Boston, 2006) available at www.mfashop.com/mfa-publications.html.