Viktor Schreckengost

The Cowan Potters, Inc., March 17, 1931, p. 2
Alastair Duncan, American Art Deco, New York, 1986, p. 117
Richard Guy Wilson, Dianne H. Pilgrim and Dickran Tashjian, The Machine Age in America, 1918-1941, New York, 1986. p. 291
Janet Kardon, ed., Craft in the Machine Age, 1920-1945: The History of Twentieth-Century American Craft, New York, 1995, p. 55
Karen McCready, Art Deco & Modernist Ceramics, London, 1995, p. 115
Henry Adams, Viktor Schreckengost and 20th-Century Design, Cleveland, 2000, cover and pp. xviii and 88-95

Just a few months after joining Cowan Pottery in 1930, Viktor Schreckengost was randomly assigned the task to design a punch bowl displaying a ''New Yorkish'' theme for a woman in New York City.  Unbeknownst to Schreckengost, the woman who commissioned the punch bowl was Eleanor Roosevelt.  Upon receiving the finished bowl, Mrs. Roosevelt was so pleased that she commissioned Cowan to produce two additional examples, one for her home in Hyde Park and the second to present to her husband upon winning the upcoming presidential election.  Cowan subsequently put the punch bowl into production, and according to Schreckengost approximately fifty examples of these parabolic straight-sided bowls were produced.  To correct firing difficulties encountered with the first series, Schreckengost designed a second variant which incorporated a flared rim.  The firm also offered a third and smaller variant nicknamed the ''poor man's bowl'' which was significantly cheaper to produce since it incorporated a more simple decorating technique.  The ''Jazz'' bowl presently offered comes from Cowan's first production cycle.  The purity of form achieved by the bowl's uninterrupted straight walls distinguishes this early model as the most dramatic and powerful of Schreckengost's three designs. 

This bowl has been authenticated by The Viktor Schreckengost Foundation and is registered under the serial number 7053.