Jazz Bowl
The New Yorker (aka The Jazz Bowl) is the name given to Viktor Schreckengost’s best-known piece—a large, parabolic, Egyptian blue punch bowl commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1931. According to Schreckengost, Mrs. Roosevelt was so impressed that she quickly ordered 2 more: one for Hyde Park and one for the White House.[1] The large bowl was then put into production by the Cowan Pottery, where at least 11 unique designs were executed (some in large numbers) including a flared variety (for stability in firing), less costly "Poor Man's Bowls" (with molded imagery rather than scratched) and matching plates--The Jazz Series. While the pieces gained much critical acclaim at the time, attention waned after the 1930s.
![](../I/m/New_Yorker_punch_bowl_02_-_Viktor_Schrenkengost_(39517173152).jpg)
In 2006, Viktor reissued his Jazz Series, in cooperation with the Cleveland Institute of Art, where a team of 15 students took over the ceramics department to issue a second series of bowls and plates.
Footnotes
- NKrause. "The New Yorker (Jazz) Bowl". Cleveland Museum of Art. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
General references
- 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.
Further reading
- Koplos, Janet; Metcalf, Bruce (2010-07-31). Makers: A History of American Studio Craft. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807895832.