Thelma Frazier Winter

Thelma Frazier Winter (1908-1977) was an American enamelist, ceramic sculptor, and painter. She worked at Cowan Pottery and belonged to the Cleveland School of artists.

Biography

Thelma Frazier Winter was born Thelma Frazier in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, to Robert Frazier and Esther Eggenberg; her family was descended from early Moravian settlers.^[1] She grew up in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Encouraged by her mother, she went on to study at the Cleveland School of Art, where she focused on ceramics and worked with Julius Mihalik and R. Guy Cowan. She completed her degree in 1929. Winter then worked for a time at Cowan Pottery before leaving in the early 1930s to pursue a degree in art education at Western Reserve University. She would go on to teach at the Laurel School in Cleveland as well as the Cleveland Institute of Art. In December 1939, she married H. Edward Winter, who was also an artist.^[2] They were longtime residents of the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland.^[3] Thelma Winter died of cancer in 1977, and is buried in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.^[4]

Work

Although she was also trained in drawing and painting in art school, Winter became known for her ceramic sculpture. She began experimenting with ceramics while a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and she credits R. Guy Cowan with introducing her to the medium. “Ceramic sculpture, built directly of vitreous clay, fired and glazed, was a revolutionary idea to me,” she told an interviewer in 1952. “Clay, such a responsive medium, summons all one’s ingenuity and adventurous impulse. Add the dimension of color and its possibilities are really exciting. I felt at once that this was my medium.”^[5] She published a book on the topic, Art and Craft of Ceramic Sculpture, which came out in 1973.^[6] Winter’s ceramic sculptures are particularly noteworthy for their glaze and color.^[7]

In the 1950s, Winter began working with enamels.^[8] Her husband, H. Edward Winter, was a well-known enamelist, and the pair worked both independently and collaboratively on projects large and small, including sizable enamel murals—including eleven commissioned by churches—and household decorative items ranging from sculptures to ashtrays.^[9] Thelma said of her enamel work: "one of the most exciting experiences of my life began when I started to work with enamels....I could transfer all I had learned in the other mediums to my enamels so that they have a style which is completely personal."^[10]

Her work is part of the highly respected Ceramics Collection at the Everson Museum (formerly the Syracuse Fine Arts Museum) in Syracuse, New York. This collection, created in 1916, is comprehensive and well-regarded. It started with the purchase of thirty-two porcelains created by another woman artist, renowned potter Adelaide Alsop Robineau (1865-1929) in the early 1900s. Then Museum Director Fernando Carter quickly expanded its’ scope, acquiring historic and iconic pottery works internationally. However, Carter also presented art by respected and innovative national ceramicists, including examples by Frazier Winter.

The Museum purchased her Juggler (circa 1949). This permanent ceramic display includes other notable ceramicists, such as Peter Voulkos, and Robert Arneson, blackware specialist Maria Martínez (1884-1980) of the San Idlefonso Pueblo, George Ohr, Betty Woodman, and fellow Ohioans Russell Barnet Aitken, R. Guy Cowan, and Viktor Schreckengost.^[11]

Bibliography

Work by Thelma Frazier Winter

• Art and Craft of Ceramic Sculpture. London, Applied Science Publishers, 1973.

References