Artwork Page for New Year's Eve in New York City (Jazz Bowl)

Details / Information for New Year's Eve in New York City (Jazz Bowl)

New Year's Eve in New York City (Jazz Bowl)

1931
designer

Viktor Schreckengost

(American, 1906–2008)
maker

Cowan Pottery Studio

(America, Rocky River, Ohio, 1920–1931)
Culture
America, Ohio, Cleveland
Medium
glazed ceramic with sgraffito design
Measurements
Overall: 28.6 x 41.3 cm (11 1/4 x 16 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund 2000.65
Copyright
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

The blue-black color scheme of this bowl references ancient Egyptian ceramic glazes in the same palette made popular after King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922.

Description

The first Jazz Bowl (location unknown) was commissioned around 1930 by Eleanor Roosevelt when her husband was governor of New York. She allegedly requested a design that reflected the exciting nightlife of New York City. A young Viktor Schreckengost had just begun his career at the Cowan Pottery Studio in Rocky River, Ohio, when he was given the task of expressing the jazzy pulse of the times in clay. Cowan liked the design so much that a small edition of similar bowls was put in production. The bowl's design was created by scratching through a thin covering of black clay (called slip) to reveal the white ceramic underneath. After the bowl was fired once, it was covered with a rich glaze of Egyptian blue and fired again for the final time.
Black ceramic bowl with a sliver of a cylindrical base and a deep bowl, patterned with Egyptian blue. Shapes scratched into the surface and colored Egyptian blue suggest a central spiked tray on which wine and cocktail glasses stand up at different angles. A round and thin-necked bottle stand to the right, blocks like stylized skyscrapers curve up to the left, and a die is partially hidden in the shadows of the underside lower left.

New Year's Eve in New York City (Jazz Bowl)

1931

Viktor Schreckengost, Cowan Pottery Studio

(American, 1906–2008), (America, Rocky River, Ohio, 1920–1931)
America, Ohio, Cleveland

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