COWAN POTTERY STUDIO, based in ROCKY RIVER, was one of the nation's leading potteries in the 1920s. R. (REGINALD) GUY COWAN, founder of the company, was born in 1884 in East Liverpool, OH, into a family of potters. He moved to Cleveland about 1908 and began teaching that year at East Technical High School. That same year he built a small kiln in a barn at Euclid and E. 107th St.as an adjunct to his work at East Tech. In 1913 he quit teaching and opened the Cleveland Pottery and Tile Company on Nicholson Ave. in Lakewood. He closed the pottery down while he served in the army from 1917-19. The pottery was relocated to Rocky River in 1920.
Upon his return he reopened the company and, with the help of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, established a plant at 19633 Lake Rd. in Rocky River. Within a decade the firm was employing 35 people and producing 175,000 pieces a year. There were 1,400 retailers throughout the Western Hemisphere selling Cowan pottery, including some of the nation's leading department stores. Examples were also purchased by several art museums, including Boston's and Chicago's. Cowan was considered a pioneer in promoting ceramic, instead of bronze, marble, or wood, as a medium for sculpture.
A majority of the firm's output was designed by Cowan himself, though after 1925 he hired several designers to assist him, some being former students at the Cleveland School (now Institute) of Art. These included Viktor Schreckengost, Thelma Frazier (later Mrs. H. Edward Winter), Paul Bogatay, and Elizabeth Andersen (later Mrs. Eliot Ness). The most prolific designer, apart from R. Guy Cowan, was Kansas native Waylande Gregory, who had studied under Lorado Taft in Chicago. Occasional designs were also created from models by such Cleveland artists as Walter Sinz and FRANK NELSON WILCOX, or by artists who became acquainted with Cowan's work. The most notable among the latter group are Paul Manship, Albert Drexler Jacobson, F. Luis Mora, and Margaret Postgate.
The company was unable to survive the Depression. The pottery closed in 1931 and the stock was sold to the BAILEY CO. department store. R. Guy Cowan later moved to Syracuse, New York to become the art director for Onondaga Pottery Co., makers of Syracuse China. In Syracuse he was also an important influence on the early years of the National Ceramic Exhibitions, held at the Everson Museum of Art. He died in 1957 and is buried in Lakewood Park Cemetery (ROCKY RIVER , Ohio).
Mark Bassett and Victoria Naumann. Cowan Pottery and the Cleveland School. Schiffer, 1997
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