A very short career

Brad Keeler was born in Lincoln, California in 1913, the son of Rufus Keeler, a prominent tile manufacturer. His first job was at Padre Potteries. In 1939 he set up his own studio in his parents’ garage in Glendale, working with a modeller named Webster — Webster doing the modelling, Keeler doing the mould work. Bullock’s department store in Los Angeles was his first customer.

It worked. He rented space from Evan K. Shaw’s American Pottery in Los Angeles, where his birds joined the giftware line Shaw represented. When the war stopped Japanese imports, American ceramics sold hard, and Keeler’s business grew through it and past it. He built his own factory. Then in 1952, while supervising construction of a new building, he died of a heart attack at thirty-nine.

The business did not survive him for long. That is the single most useful fact for dating a piece: everything Brad Keeler personally made falls inside a thirteen-year window.

The marks, in order

This is the part worth memorising, because the mark is a timeline.

Two very different collections

People who chase Keeler tend to chase one of two things.

The birds. Naturalistic, hand-painted, often made as male-and-female pairs and occasionally sold combined on a single base. Flamingos are the signature, but the herons are magnificent and the exotics are where the modelling really shows. If you find a pair still together, that is worth more than the two birds apart.

The buffet ware. Bright red lobsters on green lettuce leaves, roosters and hens, peppers and radishes, and the tomato pieces that a certain television show made famous all over again. These were serving lines, which means they got used, which means condition is the whole game.

What to check

• Turn it over first. The mark wording dates the piece faster than anything else.
• Look for label residue. A ghost ring or glue haze where a foil oval used to be is still evidence.
• Beak and tail tips. On birds these are the thinnest points and the first to chip. Run a fingernail along both.
• Paint quality. Keeler’s hand-painting is soft and blended. Hard, flat colour blocks suggest a different maker or a repaint.
• Pairs. Check whether the piece was made as one of a facing pair. A matched pair is worth well over two singles.
• Crazing. Hold it to a light and turn it. Fine crazing is common on the buffet ware, which saw real use.

Where people get it wrong

• Confusing Keeler with the other California bird makers. Ball Brothers, Will-George and others were working the same market at the same time. Will-George in particular rode the early-1950s flamingo fad. Different makers, different values.
• Reading “Catherine Keeler” as a bonus. It is not a rarer version of the same thing — it dates the piece after Brad’s death, to the period when the business was struggling.
• Buying lobster ware with hairlines. These were used at table. Check rims and handles under a bright light before you commit.
• “California pottery” as an attribution. That phrase covers dozens of firms. If the seller cannot name the maker, price it as unattributed.