The White Pottery is somewhat of a mystery for us. Although, we’ve had pieces for awhile and continue to see them occasionally we haven’t made a category for them until today because we simply weren’t sure about their origins.

We still aren’t, actually. Earlier, my first guess was that this was pottery produced by Eugene White who was a well known California pottery artist and is listed in Chipman’s books. However, his pieces are completely different than the ones we’ve seen. We now know it’s a different “White Pottery”, even though many pieces are definitely marked California. We still haven’t determined the date of production on any of the items either.

One of the reasons it has been so difficult to find information is that White Pottery is a pretty “general” term - looking on ebay is of little help because that search brings up too many other results. In addition, the backstamp on the items is a little confusing - in fact we didn’t know the word was “White” at first because the “e” is written strangely. It has a tail flourish which you don’t normally see with the letter “e”. It makes the word look almost like “Whitp” - and because of that we also thought this could be Whittier Pottery. The “h” also sometimes looks like a “r” to us - it could be “Write” or “Writp”.

Update: Awhile back I got an email from someone about White Potteries. They said: “Just some anecdotal information re: White potteries. My grandmother worked for years for Vernon Pottery. Pieces she passed down include White and Padre pieces. The White piece says “White” (very scrolled), then Calif MP, then pottery. Just reinforcing that it is an early century California Pottery company.”

Images

Nevertheless, we’re going to list this as a separate pottery instead of as unknown pieces - since the markings are definitely from the same pottery, whatever it is. We also note that the craftsmanship on these items seems a little more “crude” than some other pieces. There are often little pieces of slag inside or on the bottom of the items. The colors of the pieces are usually white or yellow. We’ve only seen planters up to now - most are marked in some way with the name, and often with a ID string or number. Many pieces are also marked “California” or “Calif”

We are wondering if perhaps this is a newer pottery - it doesn’t seem like it from the style of the mark on the back. If you have any info on the White Pottery, please let us know.

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.