Fireplace Tiles, from the John J. Meacham House, University City, Missouri

This fireplace features a panoramic landscape of flowing lines and glowing colors. The scene was made from incised glazed tiles surrounded by a blue-green matte tile border. Agnes and Frederick Rhead created this set of tiles for the home of John J. Meacham in University City, Missouri. The expansive landscape is depicted at dusk, with a cloud-filled sky beyond a screen of trees, rocks, and plants. The tiles were installed in Meacham's living room inglenook, a built-in seating area surrounding the hearth, which was a popular feature of Arts and Crafts homes from the 1870s until the 1920s. The wooden benches visible in this image are reproductions of originals found in the Meacham house. The graphic clarity and matte-textured glaze palette seen in these tiles are also hallmarks of Arts and Crafts design. In 1910 and 1911, Frederick Hurten Rhead, who had trained in England, joined the internationally renowned ceramic faculty of the Art Academy of the American Woman’s League in University City. He taught and worked at the school, at times with his wife, Agnes, also a trained artist.