Viktor Schreckengost and Cowan Pottery Studio
Jazz Bowl
c. 1931
Scroll
Physical Qualities
Glazed earthenware, 18 1/8 x 13 3/4 x 13 1/2 in. (46 x 34.9 x 34.3 cm)
Portfolio/Series
From the "Jazz Bowl" series
Credit Line
Decorative Arts Acquisitions Endowment established by the Friends of the American Wing, Friends of the American Wing Fund, Middendorf Foundation Fund, and Charlotte B. Filbert Bequest Fund
Object Number
2001.459
“I thought back to a magical night when a friend
and I went to see [Cab] Calloway at the Cotton Club [in Harlem] ...
the city, the jazz, the Cotton Club, everything ...
I knew I had to get it all on the bowl.”
— Viktor Schreckengost
The skyscrapers, cocktail glasses, musical instruments, neon signs, and dance clubs around this bowl capture, in the words of the artist, “the excitement and energy of jazz music.” In 1931, future first lady Eleanor Roosevelt anonymously commissioned Cowan Pottery in Ohio for a New York-themed punch bowl. Viktor Schreckengost, a young ceramicist and jazz musician, fulfilled the order with a buzzing celebration of the American metropolis.
Christie's, New York, Sale #9798 (12/7/01), lot #373.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, "The Art of Music from the Baltimore Museum of Art," circulated to Mansion at Strathmore, North Bethesda, Maryland, January 8, 2005-February 26, 2005; The Washington Country Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, September 30, 2005-November 20, 2005; The Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland, December 9, 2005-February 5, 2006; Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Gallery, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, February 15, 2006-April 9, 2006
'New On View,' 'BMA Today,' July/August 2002, p.8, ill.
Inscribed: BOTTOM RIM OF BOWL, exterior, (glazed 'VIKTOR./ SCHRECKENGOST'; BASE, rim underside, (impressed) 'COWAN (& the firms mark)'
On View: American Wing Second Floor, Scott 02
