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Viktor
Schreckengost
Industrial
Designer and Painter
Viktor
Schreckengost never viewed industrial design simply as a way to
improve the appearance of everyday objects. Nor did he think of
the discipline as being a poor relation of the fine arts-corrupted
by commercial considerations, requiring no particular creative spark,
and therefore of lesser value and import than its more distinguished
cousins.
Indeed,
merely to survey the work Shreckengost produced during his 70-year-plus
career is to understand the true goal of the industrial designer.
Every assignment he undertook became an elegant conception that
incorporated not only features to please the eye, but also elements
that improved function, simplified manufacture, and kept costs
affordable for the greatest number of potential consumers.
And beyond the utilitarian aspects of his work lay
a powerful artistic sense-so powerful, in fact, that in November
2000 the Cleveland Museum of Art mounted an enormous retrospective
of his work, the first time the museum ever staged a major exhibition
devoted entirely to the career of a living Cleveland-area artist.
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Brahman
1951
Glazed earthenware
21-1/2" x 26" x 9-1/2" |
Schreckengost
always imbued the design process with clarity, ingenuity, humor,
beauty and above all good taste. Perhaps that explains why so many
of the otherwise mundane, utilitarian objects he designed are now
considered classics, and why a pristine example of one could offer
sufficient incentive for a collector to re-mortgage the house to
obtain it. From his streamlined 1939 Murray “Mercury”
bicycle and racy “Pursuit Plane” child's pedal car (1941)
to the broad assortment of dinnerware, lawn chairs, light fixtures,
and even printing presses he developed, Schreckengost-designed products
all bear the stamp of a man whose inventive genius brought together
form and function in their most perfect union.
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Schreckengost
was a talented painter, sculptor, and ceramist, and the delicate
touch of a watercolorist is often evident in his work. But
his early studies also included a year (1930) in Vienna, where
he got to know Josef Hoffmann, one of Europe's leading exponents
of modernism. Hoffmann was the founder of the Wiener Werkstatte
group, whose guiding principles would become the foundation
of the field of industrial design. As a result, the perceived
divide between the fine arts and the applied arts was, for
Schreckengost, no divide
at all.
Among
his most famous works are the designs he created for Cowan
Pottery, which was located in the Cleveland suburb of Rocky
River. These include the Art Deco masterpiece The New Yorker
(more commonly known as The Jazz Bowl), a jauntily
illustrated punch bowl that was commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Yet even as Schreckengost produced decorative pieces for use
or display in the home, he could also bring to bear the reasoning
of an engineer when faced with difficult industrial problems.
In 1932, for example, Cleveland's White Motor Company called
him in to find a way to position the engine of a truck directly
under its cab. Schreckengost's successful solution added five
feet of usable payload space to the rear of the vehicle-and
changed forever the design of large trucks.
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New Yorker
or The Jazz Bowl
c.
1930
Cowan Pottery; glazed earthenware with engobe, sgraffito
H. 11-1/4", Diam. 16-1/4"
The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund
Apocalypse
’42
1942
Glazed earthenware
16" x 20" x 8"
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution,
gift of the artist
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Pursuit
Plane
(Child's
Pedal Car)
First issued 1941, Murray Ohio
Metal, rubber, plastic
64 x 105.5 x 80 cm
Collection of Paul and Renee Schreckengost
“The
earliest pedal airplanes looked like orange crates, with
wings held on by baling wire. Viktor simplified this confusion
into an appealing Brancusi-like egg shape. . . . The wings
were short enough to fit through a doorway. . . .”
-Henry Adams, Viktor Schreckengost and 20th-Century
Design (Exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of
Art, 2000) |
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A
dedicated teacher, Schreckengost served for more than 70 years
on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Art, where in
1930 he founded what is widely considered to be America's
first modern program of industrial design. Over the years,
his students would go on to become the chief stylist at Ford
Motor Company (the designer of the classic 1964 Mustang),
the chief designer of International Harvester, the director
of design for Chris-Craft Boats,
the head
of Nissan Motors' U.S. design studio, and the creators of
innumerable industrial and commercial products, from consumer
packaging to welding equipment. Either directly or through
the legacy of his students, Viktor Schreckengost has likely
touched the lives of more individuals than any other industrial
designer in history.
text
by
Mark
Gottlieb
Fall 2002
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