Born and raised in Ohio, Clara Chipman Newton (1848-1936) studied wood-carving and china painting at the School of Design of the University of Cincinnati in the early 1870s. She exhibited her china painting at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and in 1879, along with Mary Louise McLaughlin, she became one of the founding members of the Cincinnati Pottery Club, which has been in continuous operation since 1894. Newton worked at Rookwood Pottery from its founding in 1880 until the early 1900s in a variety of roles from china decorator and archivist to general assistant. Beginning in 1881, she also taught classes in overglaze painting at Rookwood’s pottery school. In 1893, Newton played an important role helping to organize the Cincinnati Room in the Woman’s Building of the Chicago World Exposition. She departed Rookwood in the early 1900s and moved to Glendale where she served as head of the art department for the Glendale Female Seminary. A lifelong champion of what she referred to as “women’s work” (arts and crafts, among other pursuits), her accomplishments and creations are inextricably tied to the arts and crafts movement—and especially china painting—in Cincinnati around the turn of the 20th century.
