4 M. A. Hadley Pottery Decorative Plates and a Chicken Shaped Casserole from Dansk. All items marked or signed on bases. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. Small chip on top rim of one plate. 

Largest Size (Chicken): 8 1/2 x 7 x 7 1/2 in. 

Mary Alice Hadley was born in 1911 in Terre Haute, Indiana. An active and energetic child, she took piano and art lessons early on, and spent many days shadowing her father at the Vigo American Clay Company, which he ran. Her mother was also a potter, and instructed her in multiple techniques. In school she showed an interest in architecture and design, and ultimately became a widely recognized painter, winning numerous awards and acclaim from Los Angeles to Europe. She attended DePauw University and married the mechanical engineer George Hadley in 1930. They moved to New York City and both attended Columbia University, returning to his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky in 1936. The couple lived in a carriage house in St. James Court and frequently traversed the length of the Ohio River on their boat, the Alice III. Unable to find sturdy dishes that she liked that could withstand life on a rocking boat, she designed and began firing her own. They were such a huge hit with friends and acquaintances, that she began taking orders and within a year they were shipping pieces across the country. When World War II broke out the Hadleys sought innovative ways to reach new audiences, and founded M. A. Hadley Pottery in 1940. In 1944 they purchased an abandoned factory in the Butchertown neighborhood and installed manufacturing equipment, hiring a potter named Perry Day to run it. The first kiln firing took place in 1945, and they hired many local workers and trained them to replicate Hadley’s signature designs. In 1952 Mary was awarded a Good Design Award from the Museum of Modern Art for her Brown Fleck pattern. Invited to exhibit at the America House in New York in 1947, her work is now featured in the permanent collections of the Speed Art Museum, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, MoMa, and the Smithsonian. Mary Alice died of cancer in 1965, and George continued to run the pottery until his retirement in 1979, when he sold it to local businessman Kenneth Moore. A company from St. Louis, Missouri operated the pottery for a few years before passing the torch to the descendants of Perry Day, who have worked at Hadley for four generations. Brook Smith purchased Hadley Pottery in 2022, with the intent of keeping the process and products unchanged from how they were first made nearly a century ago. 

Commensurate with age. Small chip on top rim of one plate.