Viktor Schreckengost Industrial Designer Born June 26, 1906
A legend of industrial design finally gets his due credit.

Viktor Schreckengost tells the story of one day driving from his house to the Cleveland School of Art, where he taught, and counting along the way all the things he had designed. "By the time I finished, I had counted 32 objects: streetlights, exhaust fans, toys, garden furniture, bicycles, lawn mowers... ."

In a 70-year career that has produced pioneering work in painting, sculpture, ceramics, and industrial design--including the first cab-over-engine truck and one of America's first sets of Modernist dinnerware, the 1933 Manhattan Dinner Service--this 94-year-old has had an immense, if largely unrecognized, influence on American life and popular culture.

Schreckengost has designed everything from artificial limbs to zoo sculptures; his everyday items such as china, trucks, and especially bicycles and children's pedal cars have become part of the lives of millions. Referring to his extensive industrial design work for Sears, Roebuck and Co., Schreckengost says, "If we sold 600,000 of something, I felt I was on the right track."

Schreckengost's interest in design began by making things as a youth in Sebring, Ohio. He and his brothers molded tiny sculptures of soldiers and football players out of the clay his father brought home from his job as a potter at the French China Company. Instead of glazing the figures, the kids would color them with melted beeswax and crayon ends. "So we just got in the habit of making everything ourselves."

After attending the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Kunstgewerbeschule, in Vienna, Schreckengost began working at the Cowan Pottery Studio, in Rocky River, Ohio. One of his first commissions, in 1930, was a large punch bowl for Eleanor Roosevelt. The Jazz Bowl, as it is known, has become one of the signature pieces of American Art Deco and an icon of the Jazz Age. Decorated with black-and-aqua images of jazz bands, pipe organs, skyscrapers, and street lamps, it reflects Schreckengost's interpretation of the energy of New York City in 1931. Roosevelt loved it so much that she ordered two. The designer points out that "she paid $50 a piece for those bowls." A great deal, considering the Cleveland Museum of Art last year purchased an early example of the bowl at auction for approximately $121,000. The Jazz Bowl is included in the museum's current exhibit Viktor Schreckengost and 20th-Century Design, the first full-scale retrospective of Schreckengost's work.

As one of the founders of the industrial design department at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Schreckengost has shaped the talents of hundreds of students, many of whom have gone on to successful careers of their own. A symposium on Schreckengost held last November at the Cleveland Museum of Art seemed more like a corporate summit than a gathering of alumni. Former students in attendance included Giuseppe Delena, chief designer at Ford Motor Co.; Larry Nagode, principal designer at Fisher-Price; Jerry Hirshberg, former president of Nissan Design International; and Joe Oros, designer of the 1965 Ford Mustang.

"I have always wondered why only wealthy people could have good design," says Schreckengost. "And I thought that if I could get enough of the designs made, they could be made at a low enough price that everybody could enjoy them. Seeing hundreds of kids riding bicycles and the pedal-car toys was just real fun."

During the 35 years he worked for the Murray Company more than 50 million bicycles were made according to Schreckengost's designs. His first one (and his favorite) was exhibited at the 1939 New York World's Fair. He designed more than 100 bikes for Sears--including the Spaceliner, Western Flyer, and Firestore--and using the same basic parts managed to make them look different by modyfying chain guards, luggage carriers, lighting systems, handlebars, and truss rods.

And then there are the banana-seat bikes--or "kooky" bikes, as Schreckengost calls them. When the Murray Company started to get orders from California for 20-inch front wheels during the 1960s, Schreckengost found out that kids were taking out the front wheel of their bicycle and replacing it with a much smaller one, allowing them to do "wheelies." "To wheelie right, you should be able to balance the bike," Schreckengost explains. "We made the banana seat so you could have two positions on the same seat. I was afraid kids would go over the back onto their heads. To protect them, I put this sissy bar on the back of the bikes with fringes on it--so it became part of the image."

Unlike other major twentieth-century designers (such as Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, and Norman Bel Geddes), Schreckengost has never been a self-promoter. He continues to paint and teach at the Cleveland School of Art. When asked what basic advice he would give to a young designer, he paused. "Always get back to the function of the object. The aesthetics, the marketing, and whatever you want to worry about all comes in on top of that. Let's take the costs out of it so that everybody can afford good design."