The Padre Pottery produced a large amount of different items in the 1930s-1950s. Some will say they are quite derivative of other potteries in the time like Gladding McBean, Bauer and Catalina. So many companies copied each others ideas that it’s difficult to say - I think they may be unfairly targeted as a copycat company often because there isn’t as much known about them as the other companies.

Chipman has them located in Los Angeles, just east of the 5 Fwy and directly north of the current day USC Medical Center. Lehner has them gone by 1952, though the decline might have come much earlier. A fire destroyed the plant in 1943, so perhaps it was even more difficult for them to bounce back.

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The earlier items are generally matte, single color glaze pottery items like vases, wall pockets, head vases, planters, figurines, bowls and dinnerware pieces. The glaze on these is actually quite wonderful, and even if the designs are often a take-off on other companies, they are quite nice.

I especially like the art-deco looking vases and planters they had. They had quite an extensive number of pieces. The piece shown above is most likely 1 of a set of 4 small planters that were meant to be arranged in a circle. When I found it, there were two others as well, but I just bought the one to have an example of Padre. It’s surprisingly small - probably only 5 inches long.

Normally, their items are marked in-mold with the Padre name and a model number. Apparently, the lower the number means that the item was produced earlier in the company’s history - although I can’t substantiate that claim. There are some instances where there is no in-mold marking on a piece (or perhaps there was a foil label sticker that was removed).

Later on, they began hand painting their items - especially the animal figurines and items. I haven’t really come across these that much - they were known as “Padre Regal”. These items sometimes do not have the “Padre” mark or may have had a sticker instead. Sometimes the marking is “Regal California”.

Whatever people say about how derivative they were of Gladding and other companies, I can’t help liking their pieces. Their doesn’t seem to be as much demand for them as other more well-known potteries of that time period. Maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve been on the lookout for awhile for good prices on their vases and pitchers.

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