R. Guy Cowan first began producing pottery in his own studio in Lakewood, Ohio in 1912. Unlike most of those that produced pottery for mass consumption, he felt that art was not to be sublimated to the demands of mass production. During the brief life of his pottery, he regularly competed for and won awards of recognition for his work's artistry, and the Art Deco styling of almost all his work is still outstanding. In 1913, the Cleveland Pottery and Tile Company was formed, with Cowan and his wife as two of the principle officers. A commission from the Cleveland Museum of Art to produce tiles in 1915 helped to establish the pottery as a business. With his enlistment in the Army in 1917, production at the pottery halted. When he returned from service in World War I, he reopened his studio, moving to Rocky River, Ohio in 1921. In 1927, the company was formally renamed Cowan Pottery Studio, Inc. With the Depression in 1930, demand for his level of artistic pottery all but disappeared, and the pottery ceased operations in 1931. All remaining inventory was sold to a department story, The Baily Company. After the failure of his company, Cowan moved from Cleveland to work for the Onondaga Pottery in Syracuse, New York, (also known as Syracuse Pottery) until his death in 1957. He also served as trustee of the Syracuse Museum of Art. Designers for the Cowan studio included many award winners - Elizabeth Anderson ("Spanish Dancers"), Waylande Gregory ("Salome"), and Viktor Schreckengost ("New Year's Eve in New York" better known as "The Jazz Bowl" - perhaps the best-known work of art from the studio). All of them were well known for their Art Deco styling that was at the forefront of pottery design in that era. Guy Cowan spent all of his life in pursuit of pottery techniques, as an educator and as an artist. The artist in him demanded perfection of all the work produced by him and in his name, even as a good portion of that work was experimental in technique and style. Early Cowan is on a heavy red body, and is often heavily glazed to hide the body color. Cowan produced after 1921 is made from a white body and sometimes uses the body color to accent the lines of the piece. There is no hard and fast rule regarding the types of glazes used except that they spanned the full range of the potter's art; much of it the results of experimental and modern (for the period) production methods. Items can be marked or unmarked, and the actual marks and labels used varied. Pieces were incised, stamped with ink, painted, marked with a diecut stamp, or labeled with paper and foil labels. The type of mark used is no clue as to the age of any piece, since marks were used concurrently, some for the life of the pottery. Perhaps the most often seen collectibles are the flower frogs and small "Deco" female figures. Some of these figures came with matching bowls, into which they were meant to be inserted, and some were parts of sets that included other items with matching figures, such as candleholders and ashtrays. The female figures were usually white, and the matching bowls of a color or white, sometimes lined with a color. These items were sold to florists as well as to individual consumers. The pottery also produced figures that were decorative items for the home. Some of the figures were marketed as artist's editions, sold in a limited, numbered quantity, the best known of which are "Adam" and "Eve". Limited to 25 sets, they were produced in 1929; most surviving sets exist only in museum collections. The rest of the production of the pottery was typical in type of other potteries of the era - vases, bookends, lamp bases, and even some teapots and dinnerware. A few of these are out there to be found by the collector with an eye for Cowan's distinctive style. The modernity of appearance can be deceptive, and some pieces can found for what are bargain prices.

For more Cowan information trythe The Cowan Pottery Museum Associates.