HARTWIG HEYNE STUDIO POTTERY HANDLE VASE

beautifully hand-formed handle vase from the Hartwig Heyne Töpferie, glazed in a rusty brown and orange matt glaze.

HARTWIG HEYNE founded his pottery workshop in 1850 in the small village of Tschöpeln which was at that time part of the German Empire. Due to the presence of large deposits of white and light gray clay in the area, the pottery trade became the main line of business in the small town of around 330 inhabitants.  HEYNE, one of nine potteries there, employed up to 50 people.  In 1936, the town was renamed Töpferstedt to reflect the primary industry there.

Following the end of WWII, the Heyne family relocated from what was now communist Polish territory (Töpferstedt was renamed Czaple) to Oer-Erkenschwick, in the district of Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia. Christine Heyne, the daughter of the family, founded a new, smaller pottery business with her aunt Meta at Esseler Str. 2, which was called HARTWIG HEYNE GmbH. Christine's son Hans Bellers was the last master potter standing in the family when the company closed in 2005.

All the items from the Hartwig Heyne workshop were hand-made studio items and not molded. They were made rustically and are generally much heavier than molded or more finely made studio ware, giving them a very pleasing heft. The company's signature glaze was a bright matt color commonly known as Yves Klein Blue (IKB) after the deep ultramarine blue color made famous by the eponymous artist (although his pieces can also be found with bright red, orange, and yellow glazes.)

Production must have been relatively prolific due to the number of their vases that have been found, though not to the mass production levels of the major West German pottery manufacturers. For many years, the company was mistakenly known to collectors as Hoy Töpferei, most likely due to a misreading of the incised mark 'Hey' which appears on the base of some items. Other works were signed with "Heyne" or individual letters and numbers. More recent examples have a foil label reading "Hartwig Heyne pottery since 1850" and the form and size numbers inscribed by hand on the base.

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