Bowling for Art

At the Rocky River Public Library there are several displays of artwork created by Cowan Pottery, a company founded in 1927 by R. Guy Cowan.

Photo attribution below*

The collection is housed in the library as an homage to the pottery company, which was located in Rocky River, Ohio. One of the pieces that kept attracting my attention was a bowl entitled "New Year's Eve in New York" created by Viktor Schrekengost. 

My curiosity getting the better of me – as it is wont to do – I took a book out of the library about Cowan Pottery and sought to get the whole story about the bowl.

In 1931, shortly after Viktor began working at Cowan Pottery, a request came in from a gallery in New York for a punch bowl featuring a "New Yorkish" theme. The patron who made the request was not named. Viktor chose to take on the project.

In Viktor's mind, New York was all about the nightlife. He saw the city in blue and black, lights and jazz music. He was inspired by Harlem's Cotton Club. And Josef Binder, an artist renowned for his stunning poster designs. 

In Cubist style, Viktor created the Jazz Bowl, employing the sgraffito technique, which he'd learned in Vienna. Sgraffito is created by covering a white clay base with a black clay. The design is then etched into the black clay, exposing the white base beneath. The bowl was decorated in stylized images that celebrated the Jazz Age: stars and neon signs, skyscrapers, ships, a bottle of Champagne and a cocktail tray. Once the design work was completed, the punch bowl was glazed in Egyptian Blue. 

The completed piece was shipped off to New York. In response, a letter came from the patron, who turned out to be Eleanor, wife of then-New York governor Franklin Roosevelt. Eleanor so loved the bowl, she commissioned two more. One was to be placed in the Roosevelts' Hyde Park Home, the other in the White House. (Presumably, she was confident FDR would be living there soon. Two years later, he was.)

Viktor ultimately crafted ten of these bowls, although not all were in the Jazz style. One featured a fox hunting scene with matching plates, each plate with a different rider. To find the fox, the bowl had to be emptied – the fox was situated at the bottom of the punch bowl.

Now that I knew the history of the Jazz bowl, I became intrigued with Vicktor himself.  

Victor Schreckengost was born in Sebring, Ohio, in 1906. At an early age, he followed in his father's and uncles' potter-professioned footsteps, making toys out of clay and using crayons as the glaze.

At The Cleveland Institute of Art, he earned his diploma in design in 1929. He studied for a short time at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, where "Victor" became "Viktor." He returned to Cleveland and in 1930, joined the faculty at the School of Art. Three years later, he started the industrial design program there, which was the first of its kind in the U.S. Generations of industrial designers were taught by Viktor, including a man named Joe Oros, who was the chief designer of the 1965 Ford Mustang. 

Viktor was called to serve his country during World War II. While in the Navy, he aided in the design of radar-dectection systems and later, artificial limbs.

Espousing a credo of "function first, form after," Viktor Schreckengost designed a wide range of everyday items. Some of his more well-known pieces include:

• 1930s: A china pattern for American Limoges called "Flower Shop"

• 1933: The first cab-over-engine truck

• 1930s+: Children's streamlined pedal cars

• Mid-1960s: Sears Spaceliner bike

Other everyday items he designed were baby walkers, golf carts, flashlights, furniture, fans and lawn mowers.

Viktor passed away at the age of 101 in Florida. At the time of his death, he was an emeritus professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he'd taught for 78 years.

It's theorized he would have been world-famous had he abandoned the shores of Lake Erie for, say, The Big Apple. But I have a sneaking suspicion Viktor was pretty happy with the way his life turned out.

What a great ride, and a truly cool Cleveland native.

*This image was originally posted to Flickr by Tim Evanson at https://flickr.com/photos/23165290@N00/39517173152(archive). It was reviewed on 6 January 2019 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.