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  Margaret Postgate / Cowan Pottery Studio American Art Deco Cubist Elephant bookends c. 1929

  MARGARET POSTGATE (1879-1953) USA

  WAYLANDE GREGORY (1905-1971) USA

  ARTHUR BAGGS (1886-1947) (glaze development) USA

  COWAN POTTERY STUDIO USA

  Cubist Elephant bookends   1929

  Ceramic bookends with a black gunmetal glaze

  Signed: Cowan studio mark (under glaze) Cowan bookend numbers 840 and 841

  For more information and illustration see: Cowan Pottery and the Cleveland School, by Mark Bassett and Victoria Naumann (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1997).

  H: 4 1/2″ x W: 5 1/2” x D: 3 3/4”

  Margaret J. Postgate was born in Chicago, IL on September 29, 1879 and died at a hospital in the Bronx, NY in 1953. Her family moved to Manhattan around 1910 and then Brooklyn around 1925 and she remained a Brooklyn resident right up until her death. Her parents were both born in England: John W. Postgate and Margaret Postgate nee Derry. She had siblings, a brother George and one or two sisters, Mary and/or Mae. Margaret studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and Cooper Union School of Art in New York. In 1925, 1925, and 1926 she participated in soap sculpture carving competitions, some sponsored by Procter & Gamble Corporation in Cincinnati, Ohio. Pamphlets exist as well as exhibition brochures and others on “how-to” carving penned by Postgate. Margaret Postgate designed for Cowan from 1929-1930 where she adapted a few of the designs she had rendered in soap for ceramic sculptures for the Cowan Pottery. She also executed a few pieces of sculpture that were cast in bronze for the bronze division of the Gorham Manufacturing Company.

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  S O G A T A New York, NY, “Costume for a String Quartette” Watercolor and pencil on paper 1930

  S O G A T A   New York, NY

  “Costume for a String Quartette”   1930

  Watercolor and pencil on paper

  Signed: COSTUME FOR A STRING QUARTETTE. SOGATA. LONDON: 1930. ESPECIALLY FOR CARL VAN V. with script signature (in pencil on lower left and beneath image)

  For contextual history and similar art see: Rhapsodies in Black : Art of the Harlem Renaissance,(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Harlem Renaissance Artists. Jordan, Denise (Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2003).

  Paper H: 14 7/8″ x W: 10 7/8 ”

  Image H: 14″ x W: 10 1/2″

  Frame H: 20 1/2” x W: 17 1/4”

  *This SOGATA New York Watercolor and pencil on paper has been gifted to The Wolfsonian – FIU, Miami Beach, FL.

  Carl van Vechten (1880-1964), to whom this artwork is dedicated, was an influential novelist, critic, and photographer in New York during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. His role in the Harlem Renaissance is well-documented. Van Vechten also introduced Miguel Covarrubias, a caricaturist and contemporary of Sogata, to prominent Manhattan artistic and society circles.