The 1930 "Egyptian Maidens" mural by Elsa Vick Shaw, a Cowan artist, was recently restored and is prominently displayed near the entrance of the Rocky River Public Library, home of the Cowan Museum.
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Thelma Frazier was the rare woman making her living as a sculptor in the 1920s-- something far more unusual then than now. In the same Rocky River studio where she worked, another artist would design a famous punch bowl with an Art Deco motif that would be purchased by one of the century's best-known first ladies.
And this same business -- which would sell its wares at department stores like Gump's in San Francisco and Saks Fifth Avenue in New York -- was created with money invested by some of Cleveland's wealthiest arts patrons, with familiar names like Severance and Burke.
Cowan achieved that with such panache that some of his pieces were featured on Hollywood's silver screen in the 1930s.
clipped from: www.cleveland.com 