Edris Eckhardt


There are a number of Archives of American Art microfilms that feature Ms. Eckhardt and her role in the Federal Art Project. The catalogue can be found at http://archivesofamericanart.si.edu/guides/pastguides/crafts/glass.htm

One of the descriptions of these papers includes the following description:

"She (Edris Eckhardt) describes her work for the Federal Art Project creating ceramic sculptures for the Great Lakes Expo, the Ohio State Fair, and the New York World's Fair; creating ceramic sculptures of the heads of famous literary characters, composers, harvest figures, and nationality groups for public libraries across the country; her position as head of the Sculpture and Ceramics Division of the Public Works of Art Project, including her training program for the artists, teaching ceramics to community occupational therapy and settlement houses, and working with the Federal Housing Project to improve housing communities such as Valley View and Woodhill Homes, Cleveland; and other aspects of the federal art projects. Eckhardt discusses her commission from Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt for a life-size ceramic sculpture of Huckleberry Finn; testing clay for the Tennessee Valley Authority; her exhibitions; her work during World War II creating and marketing ceramic pins, teaching volunteers for Army hospitals, participating in traveling exhibitions to Army hospitals, and teaching ceramics to the Cleveland community; her experimentation with gold, silver, and colored lusters; and her 1947 television demonstration on ceramics. She describes her switch from ceramic sculpture to glass including her work with "gold glass"; its history; technical aspects of her artistic process; her acceptance of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956 and 1959 and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship in 1959; her paper given at the 1956 International Glass Congress; her invention of a "glass pen," vertical laminates, and laminates of plants; her work with bronze and glass casting; the interrelationship of technique and design in her art; her teaching in the Glass Department at the University of California, Berkeley; and her opinion of her work being art rather than craft."


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