A Found Figure and Discovery

We picked up a clay figure of a girl glazed in bright happy colors. She definitely looked like the forties. We found another similar figure and by comparison we were able to determine that they were both by the artist Susi Singer. Who was Susi Singer? Today I tried to research her and was amazed at the story of an amazing woman that began to unfold.


Susi Singer was born in 1891 to a Austrian Jewish family. She suffered as a child from malnutrition related to World War I and the aftermath of that war. Although her body was malformed and she was frail she she won a scholarship, at age 17, to train at the Werner Werkstatte or the Vienna Workshops, established in 1903. This was a design group of visual artist who would produce work accessible to everyone. She worked here for 16 years. She was able to get a visa to the States enabling her to escape the Nazis and moved to California here she continued her art and even taught pottery sculpture. In 2005 the American Ceramic Museum gave her and another German woman artist an exhibit called Woman's Werk.

It is amazing what you can learn by doing a little research on a piece of pottery.