Edris Eckhardt (January 28, 1905 – April 27, 1998) was an American artist associated with the Cleveland School. She is known for her work in

Ceramic art Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. ...

and

glass sculpture Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

, her work with the

Works Projects Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

's (WPA)

Federal Arts Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...

of Cleveland, and her teaching.

Biography

Born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S ...

, Eckhardt attended the Cleveland School of Art (now

Cleveland Institute of Art The Cleveland Institute of Art, previously Cleveland School of Art, is a private college focused on art and design and located in Cleveland, Ohio. History The college was founded in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, at firs ...

) from 1928 to 1932 on a scholarship, studying at the same time as ceramicist and industrial designer Viktor Schreckengost. While still a student, she was employed as an artist and designer at the noted Cleveland ceramics firm

Cowan Pottery 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 Pott ...

. After graduating, she established a ceramic studio, specializing in glaze chemistry. Early in her career she changed her first name from Edith to the more androgynous Edris in order to counter bias against female artists. The WPA's Federal Arts Project funded much of her artistic output during the 1930s. She created a series of ceramic sculpture illustrating children’s literature for public libraries thanks to grants from the

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal program designed to employ artists that operated from 1933 to 1934. The program was headed by Edward Bruce, under the United States Treasury Department with funding from the Civil Works Admin ...

. In 1935, Eckhardt was appointed director of the Ceramics and Sculpture division of the WPA's

of Cleveland and served until 1942. During the 1930s, Eckhardt’s ceramics were exhibited widely. She showed at the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

in each of its annual May Show’s from 1933 to 1945,Cleveland Museum of Art's May Show database
/ref> and in 1947, she showed her major piece "Painted Mask" in the May exhibit. She also showed at the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco and in the 1939 New York World's Fair. After World War II, Eckhardt explored glass making—rediscovering an ancient Egyptian technique of fusing gold leaf between sheets of glass—and eventually bronze casting. Her work in

studio glass Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement. Though usage varies, the term is properly r ...

garnered her two John Simon Guggenheim Awards for Fine Arts (1956, 1959) and the

Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...

Fellowship in 1956. While her early career was focused on ceramics, her 1971

Cleveland Arts Prize Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...

Special Citation for Distinguished Service to the Arts highlighted her pioneering role in the field of glass sculpture. Throughout her career, Eckhardt taught at the university level. She began teaching ceramics at the Cleveland School of Art in 1932 serving on the faculty for the following 30 years. She held teaching positions at Cleveland College from 1940 to 1956, Western Reserve University from 1947 to 1957, University of California, Berkeley from 1962 to 1963, and Notre Dame College from 1950 to 1970. Along with her formal teaching, Eckhardt educated the public on ceramics in articles for Ceramics Monthly starting in 1954.

Notes

External links

Edris Eckhardt's works
at the

Cleveland Public Library Cleveland Public Library, located in Cleveland, Ohio, operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 27 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and the Ohio Library for th ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eckhardt, Edris 1905 births 1998 deaths Artists from Cleveland American women sculptors Cleveland School (arts community) American women ceramists 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women artists Sculptors from Ohio 20th-century American ceramists

Biography

Notes

Further reading

External links