Walter Benjamin Stephen

1875 Born Clinton, Iowa

1961 Died Asheville, North Carolina

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1904-1913 Potter Nonconnah Pottery, Memphis Tennessee

1914 Potter Nonconnah Pottery, Skyland, North Carolina

1926-1961 Potter Pisgah Forest Pottery

BIOGRAPHY

Walter Stephen is best known for creating cameo ware, a unique line of functional pottery with painted layers of porcelain on stoneware.

Stephen's work is reminiscent of Wedgewood Jasperware. The imagary on his work depicts subject matter drawn from his youth and American folklife: spinning wheels, fiddlers, log cabins, and ox-drawn covered wagons.  Stephen was also known for the crystalline glazes he developed and used. He is credited with being the first to use crystalline glazes in the southeast.

Inspired by the Arts and Craft Movement, Stephen’s first pottery was made in his twenties. He worked with his mother, artist Nellie Randal Stephen, and together they founded Nonconnah Pottery.  He closed the pottery when his parents died in 1910, and eventually, with the help of others, established Pisgah Forest Pottery in 1926. The pottery closed in 2014 after the death of Thomas Case, Stephen’s step-grandson.

Walter Stephen was mentored in North Carolina by Oscar Bachelder.