While figurines from the Block Pottery seem to turn up fairly often in auctions, i didn’t have much luck locating information on them besides the single entry in Lehner’s Marks and Chipman’s Encyclopedia. The company was located in the heart of modern day Silverlake on Sunset Blvd. I’d be interested to see if their building originally stands, and since I drive by the area every so often (usually on the way to see indie bands at clubs in the area) maybe I’ll check it out next time.

Lehner also gives a different location of Santa Monica Blvd - perhaps they moved to or from that location as well. They were active from throughout the 40s. They specialized in cute figurines, wall pockets, planters and vases. One of their more popular items were the dog figurines and other items. Some of their animal pieces really remind me of Rio Hondo or DeLee. Other items look similar to figures by Cleminsons, Ynez or Weil.

The pieces are usually marked with some form of “Block Pottery, California” - I’ve seen paper labels as well as inmold marks. Sometimes the name of the figurine (i.e. “Daisy” or “Betty”) is stamped along with the item ID#. One last thing to keep in mind - as far as we know, there is no relation to the more well known Block China Co. of New York. In addition, I see people confusing them with the B.J. Brock Co., another California pottery that made mostly dinnerware.

Note: We've tried to provide as much info as possible on this pottery maker or artist. For further info, you may want to research the items they have on Ebay listed under this name. We've tried to hand tailor the searches below so they will bring up the most accurate results. If there are no results, it will list general California pottery.