Culture & Community

Treasures in Tile

San Antonio Museum of Art

San Antonio is rich in tiles. The clay used by indigenous peoples for simple pottery is ideal material for skilled potters, and rich limestone deposits produced cement for decorative concrete tiles that add style and color to homes and other buildings. Today you will find beautiful tile installations and murals scattered all over the city, some large and striking, like Juan O’Gorman’s famous “Confluence of Civilizations” mural on the face of the Convention Center; others small and easy to miss.

McNay Art Museum

Treasures in Tile By Susan Yerkes

San Antonio River Walk, photo by Ansen Seale

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ETHEL WILSON HARRIS HOUSE

www.SanAntonio.gov/mission-trails/ mission-trails-historic-sites

MISSION SAN JOSÉ

www.NPS.gov/saan/planyourvisit/sanjose

RIVER WALK

www.TheSanAntonioRiverWalk.com

SAN ANTONIO CONSERVATION SOCIETY

www.SAConservation.org

SAN ANTONIO MUSEUM OF ART

www.SAMuseum.org

WITTE MUSEUM

www.WitteMuseum.org

Among all the tile creations, from single painted tiles to massive murals, one type of tile stands out—San José tiles, named for Mission San José, part of the San Antonio Missions UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today, a single certified San José tile can sell for hundreds of dollars, and a table with a tile mural top can easily bring $25,000, according to Susan Toomey Frost, author of Colors On Clay: The San José Tile Workshops of San Antonio. Frost’s book, and the story of San José tiles, offer a fascinating look at the people and the culture of San Antonio.

ETHEL WILSON HARRIS

Start with a smart, determined woman—Ethel Wilson Harris. Born in 1893 to a Texas family with construction and lumber interests, Harris was an energetic entrepreneur with a mission—to keep the folk arts and crafts of Mexico flourishing. In the 1920s, when most of her peers were building families, she opened her own construction business in an abandoned stone barn on the banks of the San Antonio River near downtown. She called it Mexican Arts and Crafts. Harris hired local artisans to design and make artistic tiles, plates and bowls, mostly as inexpensive San Antonio souvenirs. One of her early hires would prove her best.

FERNANDO RAMOS

Fernando Ramos was born to well-to-do parents in Mexico City who emigrated to San Antonio in the early 1920s to escape the chaos of the Mexican Revolution. Fernando’s artistic talent got attention quickly. By junior high he was winning citywide art contests. Harris spotted his talent and hired him as principal artist while he was in high school. Ramos’ colorful, elegant designs of fauna and flora were popular, but his real gift was capturing snippets of a simpler life in a Mexican village or the colonias of San Antonio. Candy sellers, tortilla hawkers, flower vendors with their colorful carts and Alamo Plaza’s Chili Queens were among his most popular subjects. Many of his tiles showed dancers. As much as he loved art, Ramos loved dance. In 1934, just 20 years old, he went back to Mexico to focus on his dance skills. There, as fate would have it, he met a glamorous young San Antonio-born woman named Carla Montel. They fell in love, married and embarked on a long and successful international performing career. But every few years Ramos would visit San Antonio, where he continued to work with Harris and create new designs.

THE MISSION

San Antonio’s Spanish Missions were in disrepair in the 1920s, when the Conservation Society stepped in to purchase and restore Mission San José, known as the Queen of the Missions, with its famous Rose Window and iconic bell tower. In 1934 Harris opened a shop in the mission’s old granary.

Alamo Stadium, photo by Ansen Seale

She also built a big new workshop and tile factory called Mission Crafts and the tiles began to be known as “San José tiles.” San José tiles were featured on fountains at World’s Fairs in Chicago and New York, and commissions and souvenir sales boomed. In 1939, Harris joined the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a technical supervisor. The 60 WPA artists she oversaw produced some lasting public art, from tile steps and murals on the River Walk to the four huge tile murals marking the entrance to the city’s Alamo Stadium. In 1941 she was hired as manager of the San José Mission, where she lived for several years, still managing Mission Crafts. In the late 50s her son built a tile-filled home for her just south of San José. Mission Crafts finally closed in 1977. The Ethel Harris House is now in the National Register of Historic Places. Harris lived to 91. The beautiful San José tiles remain her most lasting legacy.

THE COLLECTOR

San Antonio’s Susan Toomey Frost, a professor and avid collector, brought Harris’ legacy back to the spotlight. She started collecting San José tiles, and soon learned that even many experts believed they came from California’s Mission San José. Her research produced proof of their origin— and some great stories, including the story of Fernando Ramos. Over the years, Frost has collected and donated many more beautiful San José tile creations to San Antonio institutions. “My goal is to give it all away to replace what was taken out of San Antonio, either in tourists’ suitcases or by neglect or by California collectors,” Frost said.

“The Witte Museum has a ton of stuff—all the originals drawings, templates and many single tiles,” she said. There is also a mural in the Witte’s South Texas Heritage Center. When the homestead of San Antonio’s famous Maverick family was sold, Frost found a San José tile mural of a Mexican village, had it restored and donated it to the city. Today you’ll see it on the banks of the River Walk by the El Tropicano Riverwalk Hotel. “It’s the perfect place. Ethel’s first workshop, Mexican Arts and Crafts, was just a few yards away,” Frost said.

WRITER’S BIO

Susan Yerkes is an award-winning columnist, journalist and travel writer based in San Antonio.