Susi Singer

_{Vienna 1891 - 1955 California}

Susi Singer was born in Vienna in 1891. From 1905 to 1915 she studied at the Art School for Girls and Women, taught by Tina Blau, Adolf Böhm and Otto Friedmann. In 1917, Josef Hoffmann brought her to the Wiener Werkstätte, where she initially had to acquaint herself with ceramic techniques. It was not until 1919, that a first draft by her was accepted, though afterwards she was among the most productive and successful of the female ceramists, who lent the ‘WW’ signet an unmistakable flavour.
Her focus lay initially on the figural depiction, either in the group ensemble, in combination with everyday ceramics, or from 1921 as an original single figure. Her sculptures were first published in the specialist publication ‘Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration’ in 1922 . In 1925 she finally dared to take on the large format, presenting an original ceramic artwork that was about one metre high, as part of the ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes’ in Paris. After her marriage to Josef Schinnerl, Susi Singer founded her own ceramics workshop in Grünbach am Schneeberg in Lower Austria in 1925, which she successfully ran until her emigration to the USA in 1937. She died in California in 1955.