The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 23, 2025

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

1931
(American, 1906–2008)
(America, Rocky River, Ohio, 1920–1931)
America, Ohio, Cleveland
glazed ceramic with sgraffito design
Overall: 28.6 x 41.3 cm (11 1/4 x 16 1/4 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2000.65
Location: not on view

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.
  • 2000
    (Cincinnati Art Galleries, June 3, 2000, Lot 143, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2000-?
    Cleveland Museum of Art
  • Basset, Mark and Naumann, Victoria. Cowan Pottery and the Cleveland School. Atglen: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1997. pp. 189.
    Ostergard, Derek. Art Deco Masterpieces. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., 1991. p. 44.
    Landau, Diana. Ohio: The Spirit of America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2001. pp. 83.
    Adams, Henry. “Viktor Schreckengost at 99.” Modernism, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Fall 2005): 74-5.
    Sotheby's. Important 20th Century Design. December 18, 2004. Sotheby's: New York, December 18, 2024. Lot 695.
    Pulsone, Maria et al. Collecting American Decorative Arts and Sculpture (1971–1991). Boston: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1991. pp. 23, 64.
    Cleveland Museum of Art, “French 19th-Century Double Portrait Acquired; Jazz Bowl Purchased at Auction,” June 19, 2000, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Adams, Henry. Viktor Schreckengost and 20th-Century Design. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. Mentioned and reproduced: cover, pp. 88-95, 165, cat. no. 128
    Landau, Diana. Ohio: The Spirit of America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001. Mentioned: p. 83; reproduced: pp. 7, 83
    Robinson, William H., Kathleen McKeever, "And All That Jazz", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 05, May 2004 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 4-5 archive.org
    Adams, Henry. What's American About American Art?: A Gallery Tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 124-5 library.clevelandart.org
    Franklin, David, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with, New York, NY: Scala Publishers, 2012. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 312-3
    Bidwell, Frederick E., and Leslie Cade. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with New York, NY: Scala Arts Publishers, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 148-9
    Bassett, M., et. al. "Learning by Doing: The Evolution of Viktor Schreckengost's Jazz Series." Journal of the American Art Pottery Association 33, no. 4 (Autumn 2017): [12]-28. Reproduced: p. 14, fig. 1, right; p. 16, fig, 3, left; p. 23, fig. 17, above; p. 26, fig. 23, below
    Coffin, Sarah, Stephen Harrison, and Emily Marshall Orr. The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, distributed by New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. Reproduced: pp. XII, 154; mentioned: pp. 155, 362, cat. 334
    "Discovery through Design." American Fine Art Magazine 65 (Sept/Oct 2022): 72-73. Reproduced: P. 72
  • Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 1, 2023-January 28, 2024).
    The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 30, 2017-January 14, 2018).
    Gallery One 2012. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 2012-March 5, 2017).
    Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 28-July 18, 2004).
    Viktor Schreckengost and 20th-century Design. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (November 12, 2000-February 4, 2001).
  • {{cite web|title=New Year's Eve in New York City (Jazz Bowl)|url=false|author=Viktor Schreckengost, Cowan Pottery Studio|year=1931|access-date=23 April 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2000.65