Pick up one of these trays at a QBO sale and your hands will tell you it’s something special. The smooth, heavy phenolic resin does not feel like ordinary plastic, to the touch it resembles Bakelite or ivory. Designs are inlaid. Colored areas are often made of little chips, like a tiny mosaic. The wood veneer is real, as are inset coins or shell chips. The bright lines are brass.
These trays are the product of the marriage of Guthrie Sayle Courvoisier, gallery owner and plastics expert, and Moira Wallace, a child art prodigy, printmaker, muralist and designer. Courvoisier Galleries in San Francisco was the first to partner with Walt and Roy Disney to market Disney’s single animation cels as framed artwork, but Courvoisier had to close his gallery in 1942, during WWII, to help develop specialized plastics for aircraft parts. He was already married, but not to Moira. He continued marketing some Disney originals through 1946. By then, Moira Wallace was a graphic designer working for the Disney corporation. It is not public record how the two met, but they married in 1941 and in 1948 founded the Couroc Company in Monterey, CA. Courvoisier’s proprietary formula for phenolic resin is resistant to alcohol, alkalis, acids, boiling water, and cigarette burns – not your ordinary plastic!
Moira Wallace contributed something unusual, too – unique to Couroc’s manufacturing process was the amount of creative control artisans had as they meticulously assembled the trays, cheeseboards, and serving bowls by hand. Wallace was the primary designer and oversaw the workshop, creating many designs which they mass-reproduced, but workers were given free rein to be inventive within the distinctive Couroc style. This means even the most dedicated fan can never ‘collect them all’ as a large proportion are one-offs. There are thousands of unique Couroc pieces so if you come across a particular one you like, best snap it up! Even in designs which were reproduced in large quantities there can be substantial variation. This tray inlaid with foreign coins is one example as the collection of coins on each tray is different. Likewise, each rendition of one of Couroc’s earliest and most plentiful designs, a swathe of abalone shell chips and pressed seaweeds, is guaranteed unique due to the natural materials used.
Favorite themes referenced coastal California – cable cars or Fisherman’s Warf in San Francisco, fishing fleets and Cannery Row sardine factories in Monterey, the California poppy or quail. Monterey is a vacation spot and Couroc knew how to appeal to both tourists and locals. Many designs were humorous, sporting a sly, hipster sensibility like the satirical cartoons of the day. Designed for easy entertaining passing around canapes and frosty martinis, Couroc also designed barware, glasses and ice buckets to match. And they had a Southwestern line depicting Native American pottery and baskets, Kachina dancers and roadrunners. Their color pallet, heavy use of natural wood grains and the smooth feel of the trays themselves fit well with the casual, elegant mid-century modern decor in fashion at the time.
They also made commissioned corporate award pieces; Pepsi, Budweiser, the San Francisco Giants, the San Francisco Opera, DHL, and the Arizona National Livestock Show were all customers. This lemon tray from a recent sale was produced for a business in Santa Paula, CA, self-proclaimed “Citrus Capital of the World”. These logo pieces kept the company afloat after its founders had died (him in 1963, her in 1978); the company finally closed in 1996. We’ll leave you with their motto: “Any tray can serve a drink. Only Couroc can start a conversation.”
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!