'JAZZ', AN EARTHENWARE BOWL

Details

'JAZZ', AN EARTHENWARE BOWL
DESIGNED BY VIKTOR SCHRECKENGOST, PRODUCED BY COWAN POTTERY, CIRCA 1931

Of inverted bell-form, with Cubist inspired sgraffito decoration of skycrapers, a ship, guitars, playing cards, liquor bottles, champagne glasses and the words GO, STOP, FOLLIES, DANCE and JAZZ in bright blue on a black ground, signed VIKTOR SCHRECKENGOST, impressed COWAN and with the firm's mark--8 1/4in. (21cm.) high, small restoration to rim

Lot Essay

cf. other versions of this piece in Garth Clark and Margie Hught, A Century of Ceramics in the United States 1878-1978, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1979, p. 99, no. 112; Carmine Amata, 'An Artist Captures the Essence of an Era,' The Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 14, 1983, p. 13

Cowan was originally commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1931 to create three versions of the 'Jazz Bowl.' Schreckengost designed and executed these and fifty additional bowls, each with slight variations, for Cowan