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Sherman Hotel, Chicago
This plate was designed for the Sherman Hotel's Well of the Sea restaurant. It was designed to compliment the mural painted on the wall of the restaurant by Richard Koppe. He may have designed the pattern on the dinnerware, too. Here is a link for more information on the hotel and restaurant...
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.historicchicagohotels....
That's very interesting,
That's very interesting, Scott. I'd have to say, the plate design clearly took its inspiration from the mural. Paul Cook is credited with the actual execution of the pattern on the plate.
Mike
Paul Cook and Richard Koppe
Was Paul Cook the designer at Shenango? It would be interesting to know which came first, the Richard Koppe mural and restaurant design or the Paul Cook plate. My guess would be that Cook took Koppe's design and used it as a direct inspiration for the pattern on the dinnerware. Koppe was associated with the Bauhaus and taught at the Institute of Design in Chicago with Moholy-Nagy. Here is a link to a book of his drawings. You can see that his style was the same as the mural he did for the Well of the Sea. Just open the link and open "scans of a limited edition piece..."
http://www.derivativeworks.com/2005/06/richard_koppe_1.html
Just another piece to add to the puzzle.
Richard Koppe's mural
Richard Koppe's mural was really inspired. I just love it.
Paul Cook was a designer at Shenango, but not the head of the design department. It's just conjecture, but I would not be surprised if the mural was adapted to the dinnerware by Paul Cook at the request of the hotel to Shenango. I think Cook caught the essence of the mural.
Perhaps a parallel metaphor is something like a script writer adapting a book to the screen. There is art in both.
Mike