Paul Cushman Exhibition Offers Insight Into Albany’s Famous Stoneware Maker

Albany, N.Y.

:Today, at the end of Washington Avenue, one-and-a-half blocks west of the Albany Institute of Art, stands a small community park. The tiny landmark is quite different from the place the people of Albany knew 200 years before, a place where art and enterprise united as simple clay was transformed into something beautiful and marketable. An entrepreneur from New England named Paul Cushman owned the property then, and on it sat a thriving stoneware pottery.

"Paul Cushman: The World and Work of an Early Nineteenth Century Potter" sheds new light on Cushman's career in Albany. The exhibition at the Albany Institute of Art brings together 72 stoneware objects, approximately 50 of which were produced at Cushman's pottery. On view through May 27, the exhibition traces Albany stoneware production from its earliest beginnings to 1850, long after Cushman's death.

The exhibit is one of four at the Albany Institute that make up "Earth and Fire: A Celebration of Clay and Ceramics." Running concurrently with the Cushman show is "Clay Connections: Four Centuries of Ceramics and their Stories from the Albany Institute's Collections," which reveals Albany's history through imported ceramics. "Containing History: Contemporary Ceramics from Regional Potters," also on view, examines how the past can influence the present through the work of eight modern-day potters. A fourth exhibit, "Playing with Clay: Frank Giorgini's Udu Drums, Tile Murals and More" focuses on the work of ceramist Frank Giorgini, and will be on view from April 14 to August 12.

Stoneware production in Albany began around 1800 when a pottery on Washington Street was opened by William Capron. A small number of modestly decorated stoneware vessels bearing the mark "ALBANY WARE" are believed to have been made there, although no examples are known with his actual signature. In 1805, an enterprising businessman named Paul Cushman purchased Capron's site.

Cushman was born in New Hampshire in 1767 and spent most of his early years on his uncle's farm in Vermont. Once of age, he traveled throughout the Lake Champlain area of Canada. Records indicate that he had arrived in Albany by 1800 and was working as a contractor on the docks.

It was a time of great expansion for the city, with significant development on the waterfront, and a great number of people migrating from the northeast to Albany, or through Albany on their way west. They were drawn to the city by two major turnpikes, the Albany-Schenectady and Great Western, and also by the Hudson River, an important route for the trafficking of goods.

Cushman arrived in the city at an opportune time, and much of the exhibit focuses on this changing period in Albany's history. Curator of the Albany Institute of Art Doug McCombs comments, "The exhibit is as much about stoneware as it is about a place and time in history. It is about a man who was taking advantage of the situation in Albany. Anyone heading west would've passed his site."

Of particular interest is that, unlike Capron, there is no evidence that Cushman was ever trained as a potter. McCombs continues, "In his family genealogy, he is described as an enterprising individual, a businessman. He was first and foremost a pottery owner. Whether he made any is questionable."

Evidence suggests that Cushman may have hired other men to produce his ware. In the 1820 Census, he had six men living at his house, possibly potters. Paul Cushman died in 1833, and his operation was carried on by his widow and son, Robert S. Cushman, for about a year.