Edris Eckhardt (b 1907 d.1998)

Working in both ceramics and glass, both were nationally and internationally known. Her 1937 Alice in Wonderland storybook series was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris. She taught ceramics at the Cleveland School of Art and was this region's Supervisor for Sculpture for the Federal Arts Project, received two Guggenheim Fellowships. In the art world, she is remembered for rediscovering an Egyptian art of fusing gold leaf between sheets of glass to produce gold glass. This technique had eluded artists who tried to do it for 2000 years. She developed her glassmaking to include bronze and glass combinations that are thought, by some to be her best accomplishment. Her subjects ranged from those out of storybooks to the complex theme of this piece.