For more than 40 years, Edna Arnow made stoneware pottery in the basement of her house in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood on the North Side. Largely self-taught, she became a well-known and respected craftswoman in the Midwest. She developed distinctive textured glazes and clay bodies.
In the 1950s, she was part of an artists’ coop gallery, Exhibit A, with potter Earl Hooks and others. She had exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago and The Chicago Public Library. She appeared on local televison, giving demonstrations and taught at the Evanston Art Center.
Most weekends during the summer, she and her husband, Robert—who made pottery, too, but worked as a Chicago policeman—packed up the Pontiac station wagon with functional ware for art fairs around the city and suburbs. For some 30 years, she always went to the art fairs at Old Town, The South Side (57th Street), Evanston and Oak Park—and often sold at others as well.
Today, Arnow Stoneware Pottery is often found for sale as “mid-century modern” design. It’s a style that Edna helped create. Below are some pictures of her work. Photos by Robert Arnow.
More of Edna Arnow’s mid-century modern pottery from the 1960s and 1970s
Photos of Edna at Chicago Art Fairs, demonstrating at the wheel, and Robert Arnow, her husband and fellow potter. Click here.
More photos of Edna’s pots made from 1955-1978 here.
Edna died Feb. 8, 2013, at age 92 after a short illness. You can e-mail her children, Pat Arnow or Maureen Banner or Mike Arnow.
Top of Page, here
Edna’s Web page by Pat Arnow. Here is Pat’s photography website.
Here is Maureen and Michael Banner’s fine silversmithing website.
All photos on this page © Copyright Pat Arnow 2022. Please ask before reproducing.
Curious, was your mom the wife of Robert Arnie and daughter of Maurice and Josephine Goldberg. I am a family historian working in a family tree which I happy to share.
Michael Goldberg
Highland Park, IL
847-987-6244