Bowl

In late 1931, Amory Houghton, then president of Steuben Division, Corning Glass Works, appointed Walter Dorwin Teague as design consultant to Corning and Steuben under a one year contract commencing in February 1932. From his Madison Avenue office in New York City Teague worked out a series of new modern designs for Steuben tableware, visited the Corning plant monthly to observe production. In addition to contributing thirty-two new patterns to the Steuben offerings, Teague also analyzed production and sales problems, offering possible solutions at the factory level.
Teague specified colorless glass in his designs for Steuben, reflecting a trend exhibited by Scandinavian glass of the period that was often pale in color or colorless with simple decoration. This bowl is marked with elegant cross-hatched decoration that lends the bowl pattern as well as texture. The elegance of this bowl reflects Teague’s goal of shifting Steuben’s consumer target to a higher status customer. He wrote to Armory Houghton in October of 1932, “We must work to establish Steuben as the finest glassware in America, worth all we ask for it. I believe we can make the ownership of Steuben glass one of those evidences of solvency – like the ownership of a Cadillac sixteen or a house in the right neighborhood.”[1] While Teague had admirable ambitions for Steuben, he was not retained as a design consultant beyond the expiration of his first year’s contract. Most of his designs were discontinued in 1933.

Bowl; Designed by Walter Dorwin Teague (American, 1883–1960); mold-blown, sand-blasted, acid-etched, and wheel-cut glass; H x diam.: 25.4 × 28.5 cm (10 in. × 11 1/4 in.); Gift of George R. Kravis II; 2018-22-34

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.