{
"data": {
"id": 110066,
"accession_number": "1928.667",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Moses, 1927. Cowan Pottery Studio (America, Ohio, Lakewood, 1913\u20131919), Alexander Blazys (American, born Russian Empire [now Lithuania], 1894\u20131963). Faience (?); overall: 48.3 x 21.6 cm (19 x 8 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Educational Purchase Fund, 1928.667",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Moses",
"creation_date": "1927",
"creation_date_earliest": 1927,
"creation_date_latest": 1927,
"artists_tags": [
"May Show",
"Cleveland Institute of Art (faculty)",
"gender unknown",
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America, Ohio, Cowan Pottery Works, Early 20th century"
],
"technique": "faience (?)",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Decorative Art and Design",
"collection": "Decorative Arts",
"type": "Ceramic",
"measurements": "Overall: 48.3 x 21.6 cm (19 x 8 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.483,
"width": 0.216
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 381573,
"title": "The May Show: 9th Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen",
"description": "The May Show: 9th Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 5, 1927).",
"opening_date": "1927-04-27T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 312510,
"title": "Contemporary American Ceramics Selected from the Fifth National Ceramic Exhibition",
"description": "Contemporary American Ceramics Selected from the Fifth National Ceramic Exhibition. Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA (December 2-20, 1936); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 29, 1936-January 28, 1937); University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (February 4-March 1, 1937); San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA (March 17-April 18, 1937); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (April 28-May 23, 1937); Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (July 14-August 15, 1937).",
"opening_date": "1936-12-29T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 312185,
"title": "Retrospective Twenty-fifth Anniversary May Show",
"description": "Retrospective Twenty-fifth Anniversary May Show. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 13-February 14, 1943).",
"opening_date": "1943-01-13T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310252,
"title": "Cleveland Art Comes of Age: 1919-1940",
"description": "Cleveland Art Comes of Age: 1919-1940. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 28-September 10, 1989).",
"opening_date": "1989-06-28T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 218478,
"title": "Craft in the Machine Age: European Influences on American Modernism, 1920-1945",
"description": "Craft in the Machine Age: European Influences on American Modernism, 1920-1945. American Craft Museum (organizer) (October 19, 1995-February 25, 1996); Fort Wayne Museum of Art (September 7-November 3, 1996); Akron Art Museum (January 25-March 30, 1997); Milwaukee Art Museum (June 15-August 15, 1997); Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art (September 1-November 30, 1997).",
"opening_date": "1995-10-19T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 221961,
"title": "Bringing Modernism Home: Ohio Decorative Arts, 1890-1960",
"description": "Bringing Modernism Home: Ohio Decorative Arts, 1890-1960. Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (organizer) (January 28-April 17, 2005).",
"opening_date": "2005-01-28T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Columbus Museum of Art (1/28/2005 - 4/17/2005): \"Bringing Modernism Home, Ohio Decorative Arts, 1890-1960\" ex. cat. no. 19, p. 55.",
"opening_date": "2005-01-28T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Purchased from Tenth Annual Exhibition of Work by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": null,
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80002416"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1928.667-moses"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Boram-Hays, Carol. \u201cAt Home in the Metropolis: Art Deco (1915\u20131935.\u201d Bringing Modernism Home: Ohio Decorative Arts, 1890\u20131960. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005. p. 55.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Basset, Mark and Naumann, Victoria. Cowan Pottery and the Cleveland School. Atglen: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1997. pp. 114-5.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "American Craft Museum. Craft in the Machine Age: The History of Twentieth-Century American Craft (1920\u20131945). New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995. p 150.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cowan Pottery Studio Entry Card to 1927 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMS01290"
},
{
"citation": "Hawley, Henry. \u201cCowan Pottery and the Cleveland Museum of Art.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76, no. 7 (September 1989): 238\u2013263.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 245-246, fig. 9",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25160082"
},
{
"citation": "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.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 18, fig. 8, left",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1928.667",
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"creditline": "Educational Purchase Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
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"athena_id": 110066,
"creators": [
{
"id": 25744,
"description": "Cowan Pottery Studio (America, Ohio, Lakewood, 1913\u20131919)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "maker",
"biography": "The Cowan Pottery Studio was founded by R. Guy Cowan in Lakewood, Ohio, United States in 1912. It moved to Rocky River, Ohio in 1920, and operated until 1931, when the financial stress of the Great Depression resulted in its bankruptcy. Cowan Pottery produced both artistic and commercial work in a variety of styles influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Deco, Chinese ceramics, and modern sculpture.
During its two decades of operation, a number of well-known Cleveland School artists worked with Cowan at the studio: Elizabeth Anderson, Arthur Eugene Baggs, Alexander Blazys, Paul Bogatay, Edris Eckhardt, Waylande Gregory, A. Drexler Jacobson, Raoul Josset, Paul Manship, Jos\u00e9 Martin, Herman Matzen, F. Luis Mora, Elmer L. Novotny, Margaret Postgate, Stephen Rebeck, Guy L. Rixford, Viktor Schreckengost, Elsa Vick Shaw, Walter Sinz, Frank N. Wilcox, H. Edward Winter, and Thelma Frazier Winter. With the exception of Guy Cowan, himself, Waylande Gregory designed more pieces for the pottery than anyone else. Among Cowan's finest pieces were three limited edition figures relating to dance, including \"Salome\" (1928), \"The Nautch Dancer,\" (1930), and \"The Burlesque Dancer,\" (1930). For the last two, Gregory made sketches from the side of the stage of the well-known Ziegfeld Follies star, Gilda Grey, when she was performing in Cleveland.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
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{
"id": 14713,
"description": "Alexander Blazys (American, born Russian Empire [now Lithuania], 1894\u20131963)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "sculptor",
"biography": "Cleveland\u2019 s leading modernist sculptor of the 1920s, Alexander Blazys was born in Poniewiesz, Lithuania. After graduating from military school, he studied sculpture for seven years at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. He visited Paris frequently during this period and in 1920 decided not to return to the Soviet Union because of the political restrictions placed on modernist art. Working in Paris, he received critical acclaim for sculptures exhibited in the Salon des Ind\u00e9pendants. In 1923 he immigrated to Detroit, where exhibited and received his first American commissions. The following year he moved to New York City but, upon the invitation of a friend, settled in Cleveland in 1925. Blazys\u2019 gracefully stylized sculptures of East European folk dancers and musicians in the 1926 May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art established his reputation as \u201cthe sculptor of rhythms.\u201d He was immediately embraced by the Cleveland art community, receiving numerous commissions for portrait busts, from which he earned his primary income. He was head of the sculpture department at the Cleveland School of Art, 1926\u201338. In 1927 his large bronze figural work City Fettering Nature was installed on the grounds of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Around this time Blazys joined the staff of the Cowan Pottery Studio as a designer and encouraged the studio to experiment with ceramic sculpture. Cleveland\u2019s Eastman Bolton Gallery sponsored his first solo exhibition (1929), and his works subsequently appeared in group shows in Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia though he remained active in the local art scene during the 1930s, his popularity waned, and in the early 1940s, after com plet ing a Works Progress Administration commission to create stone relief carvings for the Woodhill Homes housing project, he moved to New Jersey and worked for a series of ceramic firms creating molds for mass-produced figurines. Blazys returned to Cleveland in 1952. Selected References Fort, Ilene Susan.
\"Transformations in Cleveland Art\" (CMA, 1996), p. 223",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1894",
"death_year": "1963",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1928-11-16T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1927,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1927",
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"record_type": "object",
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"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
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"updated_at": "2026-04-06 21:00:40.886000"
}
}