Viktor Schreckengost, a pioneering industrial designer and ceramist who brought innovative mass-produced items to millions of American households starting in the 1930s, has died. He was 101.
Schreckengost, who founded the industrial design department at the Cleveland Institute of Art in the early 1930s, died Jan. 26 of causes related to old age, his stepson Chip Nowacek said.
A longtime resident of Cleveland, Schreckengost died at his winter home in Tallahassee, Fla., according to Nowacek.
Schreckengost was known in design circles for a wide range of products, from pedal cars and streamline bicycles to dinnerware and lawn furniture, among other goods. A number of his products were sold at Sears and similar stores.
"Nearly everyone alive is familiar with something he did," wrote Henry Adams, curator of "Viktor Schreckengost and 20th Century Design," in an essay that accompanied the 2001 exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Although many of the products Schreckengost designed are instantly recognizable, "his name is unfamiliar outside a small circle," Adams wrote.
Schreckengost began his design career with Cowan Pottery in Ohio, where he created a limited-edition Art Deco-style "Jazz" punch bowl in 1931. His first customer was Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was then governor of New York. She liked the scenes of New York City that decorated the bowl and bought three, for $50 each. In 2004, one of the "Jazz" series bowls sold at auction for $254,000.
Schreckengost continued to craft ceramics, some of them one of a kind, but his larger goal was to bring style and high quality to the mass-production market. "I didn't understand why only the wealthy could afford good design," he said in a 2001 interview with the Virginian-Pilot newspaper.
In the 1930s and '40s he created dinnerware in unadorned, modern shapes for pottery factories including American Limoges and Salem China. He patented his design for a "dripless" cup that kept coffee from dribbling off the lip and down the sides.
During that time he also became known as an industrial designer of flashlights, room fans, lighting systems and a golf cart-style lawn mower, among other goods.
In 1933 he and engineer Ray Spiller developed one of the first blunt-nose cab-over-engine trucks. It was produced by White Motor Co. in Cleveland. With the cab positioned over the engine rather than behind it, the truck offered extra hauling space.
