This rare yellow pitcher is part of a series of functional forms designed and hand crafted by Weston Neil Andersen in the early years when he was developing ideas for a line of slip cast functional ware used to launch Andersen Design, or Ceramics by Anderson, as it was originally called.

The pitcher was most likely created when Weston was the Dean of the Art School at Akron Art Institute, in the late forties and early fifties. Otherwise it would have been created while an industrial design student at Pratt Institute where Weston learned ceramic slip casting in a class taught by Eva Zeisel.

At the Akron Art Institute, Weston had access to a state-of-the art ceramic studio. The body used on this small collection is porcelain, different from the stoneware body which Weston developed for the line he launched in Southport, Maine.

This is a charmed form of simple design and pleasing proportions. It has everything a pitcher needs to be a pitcher, no more and no less, a spout and a hollow to contain liquid. The glaze is a soft matte yellow with a few irregular red hued variegations of a natural character. There is one pinhole.

The lip curves gracefully on the thinly-cast form. There are slight shaved spots on the lip which have been glazed over. One can see a mild definition of a mold line towards the center bottom of the pitcher, not distracting to the integrity of the piece. The bottom is glazed yellow without a signature, as though made at a time when the signature was not yet considered. There are slight rough spots on the bottom probably caused by a stand used to protect the bottom of the piece from the bottom of the kiln.

The pitcher is 5 inches tall, 4 inches wide, and 1.75 inches on the bottom diameter.