In the mid-1920s, the son of a commercial potter living in Sebring, Ohio, enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art, today's Cleveland Institute of Art. He wanted to be a cartoonist, but shifted his focus to ceramics, which he continued studying in Austria after he graduated in 1929. He returned to Cleveland in 1930, and became the youngest CIA faculty member, just 25 years old. The same year, while working at Cowan Pottery in Rocky River, he took an order for a punch bowl. The so-called "Jazz" bowl he subsequently created was inspired by scenes he saw in New York. The recipient of that bowl was Eleanor Roosevelt, and a budding legacy began to flourish.
By the mid 1930s, the artist's ceramics were exhibited in museums throughout the country, and his interest turned to industrial design. He created among the world's first lines of mass-produced dinnerware for American Limoges, and helped design the first ever cab-over-engine truck for the White Motor Company, one of Cleveland's many automobile manufactures. The design eliminated the nose of the truck and created space for a larger load, revolutionizing the trucking industry.
As the decade drew to a close, he was hired as chief bicycle designer for Murray-Ohio, and his first design was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair. A line of iconic children's pedal cars followed. Ultimately, Murray sold more than 100 million of his bicycles and pedal cars. During WWII, he was assigned to a top-secret radar project by the US Navy. He was flown above battle zones to visualize the landscapes, before building detailed, three-dimensional topography models. He earned the Secretary of the Navy's commendation for his work.
When he returned from the war, he began developing products for Sears, General Electric and other companies. His designs resulted in millions of affordable products for millions of Americans. Lawn furniture and riding lawn mowers, stoves and refrigerators, printing presses and typesetters, pedal cars and toys, bicycles and gearshifts, stage sets and costumes, coffins and artificial limbs, street lamps and baby walkers, dresses and broadcast devices – he designed it all. In 2005, Crain's Cleveland Business estimated that his creations netted nearly $200 billion for the American economy.
Beyond ceramics and industrial design, he enjoyed watercolors and sculpture. In 1956, his towering depictions of mammoths and mastodons on the walls of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo's pachyderm building became a popular fixture (pictured, during construction; courtesy of The Cleveland Press Collection). Around the same time, he designed and created the terra cotta mural "The Early Settler" to adorn the facade of Lakewood High School. This year, the zoo mural will become part of the zoo's entrance, and the mural he created for Lakewood High School has been a symbol for the Lakewood school system for decades.
Education was a passion and the designer/sculptor/painter continued teaching at Cleveland Institute of Art for more than half a century. He was a professor emeritus until his death in 2008, at age 101. His name was Viktor Schreckengost.
