Janeway sought out Hensleigh Wedgwood, soon to be future President of the American office of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, for help with her how-to ceramics book. One result was Janeway’s invitation in 1947 to provide designs for a line of tableware which was not produced. Two of her twelve prototypes, underglaze decorated Wedgwood blanks, appeared in the large 1948 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and its printed catalogue, “Wedgwood, A Living Legacy.”

Eight of these prototypes were displayed in her apartment while the identification of the other four awaits. Below see a few of these plates, 9¾ inches in diameter, on the traditional 18th century “Concave” shape.

(above) View of  Greenwich House Pottery entrance, 1944, photographer is Risdon Tillery (courtesy of Library of Congress)

Before Janeway had a proper studio in mid-1943, she relied on others’ kilns to fire her tiles, including that of Greenwich House Pottery then under the direction of  Gertrude Rieschke.

William Soini, pottery instructor there when she started, may have instructed her in wheel-thrown wares. Pat Clark (Stetson) seems to have helped her while GHP director in 1945 and  perhaps as a  Janeway studio painter as well.  Ceramicist Anne Wright (Meerkerk), friend of Janeway in this period, also fired wares there and assisted Pat Clark in 1945.

There is one Janeway tile in the Greenwich House Pottery study collection. It is 6 inches square,  framed and  depicts a bird. It originates from Janeway’s collection and was presented to GHP after Janeway’s death in 1989.

(above) Current view of Cooper-Union building on Astor Place (East 8th St), home of the Cooper-Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration which collection, in the late 1960s, formed a basis for the present Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design (Smithsonian Institution).

(above) Art historian Calvin S. Hathaway (1907-1974), seen here in his role as one of the “Monuments Men” of WWII, was  a curator of the Cooper Union Museum before  the war and, after the war, he ultimately became director.  Building up a decorated tiles collection for the museum, Hathaway acquired four Janeway tiles in 1947.  Janeway’s studio at 47 East 8th street was one block from Cooper Union. One of these tiles is yet preserved in the Cooper-Hewitt collection. It depicts a housefly in black and green underglaze decoration:

An article Victoria Jenssen posted on the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum about this tile:

https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18606771/

Left over from her last studio-storefront on West 10th Street (closed 1952), a cigar box of Janeway buttons were found in Janeway’s apartment. As well a few buttons have been sold at auction recently.

A damaged button could have been repurposed, set as a brooch.

(above) Janeway ceramic buttons. The figures are executed using sgraffito whereby the initial colored underglaze paint is scraped away to reveal the design as the white of the clay body.  Ceramics & Potterymaking for Everyone.1950

Janeway’s line art depicting her satsuma-like buttons. Ceramics & Potterymaking for Everyone. 1950.

(above) Left: Womens’ pages fashion alert about Big Buttons.1941.   Right: Janeway finishing surfaces of her ceramic buttons before firing and adding underglaze and sgraffito decoration. Ceramics & Potterymaking for Everyone.1950.

(above) Janeway tiled hearth depicting seagulls and beach in Delft colors. somewhere in Amagansett, Long Island. pre-1949. seen here in Ladies Home Journal, June 1949.

(above) Promotional photograph by Georg Jensen Inc. showing sample Janeway tiled fireplace surround, Woodland theme, in Jensen’s showroom, 1945.

(above) An uncredited Janeway fireplace facing depicting a foxhunt. Likely in Fairfield County, CT or Westchester County, NY. depicted in Good Housekeeping in 1952. location unknown.

(above) Janeway. Peacock. Wheeling Tile. ca 1946. author’s collection

Initially, Janeway’s decorated dustmolded industrial 6 inch square tiles were the basis of her career. She would often send a single tile as a thank you gift and in general used them as promotional items.

(above) Janeway. Eagle. circular tile. 6 in. diam. pre-1947.  location unknown.

(above) entry in 1945 Georg Jensen Inc mail order catalog showing round tiles.

The Georg Jenssen Inc. sold them singly or as sets to be set in trays or tables. When Life magazine devoted a 3-page photo essay on her, the focus was on her tiles.

(above) Pages from Life magazine’s photo essay, Carol Janeway’s Tiles Have  Fanciful Designs, July 23, 1945.

(above) from “Do You Know This?” House & Garden. June 1944. p.72.

By early 1943 Janeway was producing ceramic chess sets of her own design using slipcasting. They were monochrome, black and white. Georg Jensen Inc offered these sets and also at least one Janeway tiled chessboard.

Janeway monochrome chessmen offered by Georg Jensen Inc. in 1944 brochure,  Presenting Carol Janeway’s Ceramics. 

(Courtesy of Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, Washington. 1960.1.1.)

The Mary Hill Museum of Art owns a complete monochrome Janeway chess set (blue vs white), pre-1947, acquired in 1960 and now part of the George E. Muehleck, Jr. Gallery of International Chess Sets. Janeway signed one piece, the White Queen, a powerful piece with which she identified.

https://www.maryhillmuseum.org/maryhill-chess/

Janeway was one of 32 avant-garde artists, one of 2 women, who exhibited their chess sets in Julien Levy Gallery’s surrealist-oriented “Imagery of Chess” of December 1944.  That Janeway set would have been monochrome, black versus white.

(above) Janeway’s polychrome sample chesspieces from her estate were arranged on modern chessboard as part of the 2005 exhibition curated by Larry List:  The Imagery of Chess Revisited. (actual pieces are in Philadelphia Museum of Art; ex coll. Young-Mallin Archive;  Carol Janeway Collection)

In December 2022, the British Chess Magazine published Celia Rabinovitch’s  interview with Victoria Jenssen about Janeway chess sets : The White Queen of New York.

https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:23bdcbb7-7f26-3146-8d3a-a8701ecc8952

(above) Janeway. Bird with Upturned Beak. rounded tile. “Z” in signature refers to Ossip Zadkine, her mentor, and places the decoration in later 1945.

The original purpose of these industrial blanks, available through Wheeling Tile and Atco, was for shower thresholds. After Ossip Zadkine’s departure in August 1945, Janeway briefly signed her tiles to include the letter “Z.” datable 1945.

(above) Janeway. rounded tile, reverse view. some felt stripping is preserved. Blank was Wheeling Tile Co. shower threshold tile.

(above) One of a pair of Janeway tiled bookends. datable 1942-44 based on painted signature and early design. location unknown.

(above) Promotional photograph from Georg Jensen Inc used to illustrate Janeway’s 1950 book, Pottery & Ceramics for Everybody.

Janeway began producing these tiled bookend sets early in her career with Georg Jensen Inc, adopting an existing Jensen design for bookends. The pair of Bluebirds motif is an early one, joined later by mix-and-match sets using any of her tile designs.

(above) Janeway bookends, datable post-1947. location unknown.

(above) Early in her career Janeway painted several frontal self-portraits on tile. She did fill commissions to paint tile portraits of others , however none  have yet come to light. Location of this tile is unknown.

(above) Janeway self-portrait tile appears in her 1950 book, Ceramics & Potterymaking for Everyone. location unknown.

(above) Janeway. Self-Portrait. tile. Ex-collection Judith Mallin, ex-collection Carol Janeway. private collection.

(above) Four of five Janeway doorknobs were found in Marilyn Monroe’s estate. These four were sold at auction by Christie’s in 2001. Monroe came to own them, somehow, by taking over the Sutton Place penthouse of the Swope family which had commissioned 26 doorknobs from Janeway in the early 1950s.

Janeway fabricated her popular doorknob sets using slip molding. Decorations ranged from her humorous repertory (baggy hungover eye, smiling sun, handshake-welcome, spider in spiderweb, Eve with apple) to custom designs, usually with the person’s name in cursive, swooping birds, all encircled by leafy branches in heart-shape.

The doorknob depicted below,  made for Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr. (1915-2008), TV and film director and producer , was sold at auction in 2005 , as part of the estate of Marilyn Monroe.  The high hammer price, $1,140 inspired a sermon entitled “You Are a Doorknob.”

https://lifetoday.org/connect/words-of-life/you-are-doorknob/

(above) Janeway.Oversized Janeway doorknob, diam. 3-1/2 inches. datable 1947- early 1950s. (ex-collection Marilyn Monroe, current location unknown)

see also: Victoria Jenssen, “Carol Janeway’s ‘Fanciful’ Doorknobs,” in O Pioneers! Women Ceramic Artists, 1925-1960.  ed. Ezra Shales (Alfred, NY:Alfred Ceramic Art Museum). 2015. pp.39-41.

(above) Janeway. 4-tile cheesetray. Winging Peacedove. Georg Jensen Inc. design.1943-1947. Author’s collection.

Nearly as soon as Janeway started decorating tiles for sale, from 1942,  she decorated 2- and 3- tilesets to incorporate in oblong trays. They were a mainstay of her private sales and also those of Georg Jensen Inc. Her early trays varied in appearance according to whoever made her frames. For example:

(above) Compare non-Jensen tray frame  (author’s collection) with a Jensen “Carol Janeway Tray,” (below) as they were described in the yearly Georg Jensen Inc. catalogs.

(above) Janeway. “Carol Janeway Tray,” Georg Jensen tray design. Location unknown.

Georg Jensen Inc. offered Janeway tile trays in several configurations from 1943-1949. The 4-tile platters used 4-1/2 inch square tiles which stood slightly proud from the frame. Often such trays were hung on walls as decor.

(above) Janeway. 4-tile cheese tray. Circus Horse with ball. Georg Jensen Inc. tray design. 1943-1947. Location unknown.

(above) Ed Wiener pendant/brooch with Janeway ceramic insert. Pelican in gold. ca.1948. author’s collection; ex-coll. Carol Lane.

(above) Ed Wiener as he appeared in a 1950s issue of Craft Horizons.

(above) Reverse view of Wiener-Janeway  pendant/brooch. Pelican in Gold. ca 1948.

Starting in 1947, Janeway and Ed Wiener, upcoming NYC silversmith and jewelry maker, started an arrangement by which he incorporated her decorated ceramic “gems” in these characteristic heavy settings. Most of her gems are signed “Janeway” or “C.J.” yet some are unsigned.  They were sold from his “Arts and  Ends” shop(s).  These pendants and rings are co-creations. His catalogs do not credit Janeway for the ceramics.

(above) Ed Wiener-Janeway pendant, Dragon in Silver. ca. 1948. as depicted in www.925-1000.com. location unknown.