"Polo Player, " Iconic Art Deco Vase by Waylande Gregory, 1930s

Waylande Desantis Gregory was born in Baxter Springs, Kansas, on June 13, 1905. He was a sculptor, a designer and a craftsman. He studied at Pittsburg State Teachers College, 1922 and enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute. Within a few months, Gregory accepted a position with the McCartney Ornamental Plastering Company. Though still very young, Gregory was soon assigned his first major project of the design and casting of architectural ornaments for Strong Hall, the administration building at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Gregory next found his way to the Chicago Art Institute, where he came under the influence of historian-sculptor Loredo Taft and began to work in marble, bronze and ceramics. Ceramics became Gregory’s primary medium. He apprenticed himself to the Midland Terra Cotta Company in Cicero, Illinois, then enrolled at the University of Kansas City to study chemistry, geology and mineralogy. Before embarking on his career as a ceramic sculptor, however, in 1928 he went as artist-designer to the Cowan Art Pottery Studio in Rocky River, Ohio. When the Cowan Studio closed in December 1931, Gregory went to the Cranbrook Academy of Art as a fellow-in-residence. In 1932, he established his own studio in Bound Brook, New Jersey and turned his attention to creating ton-size, ceramic statuary. He died in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on August 18, 1971.