Niloak Pottery Hywood

As the great depression spread across the world in 1929, Niloak sought to find a way to compete in the inexpensive pottery market with other potteries such as Weller Pottery and Rookwood Pottery. The result was Hywood, a line introduced in 1931. The name Hywood was created from "Hy" from the owner's last name "Hyten" and "wood" from the wood used for the kiln fuel for that particular line.

The designs were created by Stoin M. Stoin, a Bulgarian immigrant who had previously designed vessels for the Weller Pottery Company. Stoin designed 62 shapes for Niloak, all wood-fired and hand-thrown. These are marked as "Hywood Art Pottery" , and were each covered with one of nine glazes whose formulas Stoin refused to share. These nine original glazes were were all matte, and were often applied as two color combinations. The original color schemes included Ozark Dawn, Peacock Blue, and Sea Green.

In 1932, Stoin left Niloak for a position as art director for Burley Winter. With his departure, new glazes were formulated and implemented by Howard Lewis in an attempt to duplicate his secret formulas. These included Ozark Dawn II and Peacock Blue II. Without the services of Stoin to throw the pottery, the Hywood designs were duplicated through both slip casting and mold pressing. These later pieces are easily identified by the mark "Hywood by Niloak".

By 1937 the Hywood name was retired, and all of the produced pottery was labeled simply as Niloak.