Who is Susie Cooper: A Great Pottery Designer

Burslem School of Art, Stoke-on-Trent, England

Susie Cooper was born in 1902 in Stansfield, part of Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent, in the Midlands of England. She was the youngest of seven children in a reasonably prosperous family which owned a number of businesses.

Even as a child, her artistic talent was evident as was her interest in nature - one of the recurring themes in her designs in later years.

She studied at Burslem School of Art where her talent was so obvious that she was given a full scholarship. Her ambition was to go to the Royal School of Art in London and become a fashion designer but was not eligible unless she was already in a relevant employment.

Fate intervened in the shape of Gordon Forsyth, the Principal of Burslem School of Art, who suggested that she work for the local pottery company of A.E. Gray & Co where she trained as a paintress.
Again her talent shone through and she was quickly promoted to designer and, in 1923, the company launched an original Susie Cooper design developed with Gordon Forsyth, the Gloria Lustre range. The company was so impressed with her work that they designed a special back stamp showing a speeding steamship with the words 'Designed by Susie Cooper'.

Unfortunately, A.E. Gray & Co bought in undecorated shapes so Susie Cooper had no influence on the design of the pieces she was working on. This became a source of frustration so in late 1929 so she left Grays to set up her own business in partnership with her brother-in-law Jack Beeson. They only stayed a few weeks in their first workshops because the landlord was made bankrupt. A few months later, in 1930, they began again in the Chelsea Works in Burslem.

Susie Cooper Design, Kestel Coffee Service
Copyright Mark Clemas, Used under the Creative Commons License

Even in her own business, Susie Cooper still had to buy in undecorated shapes but at least she could choose them.

Her great skill was not only as a designer, she had a gift for knowing what people wanted to buy. She also had the foresight to see that the mass market was important. In fact she had realised that there was a gap in the market between very cheap plain crockery and fine china. She designed for the middle range and combined innovative design with functionality. She was particularly good at anticipating what the market would want and keeping ahead of trends.

Sharon Gator of the Wedgwood Museum who knew Susie Cooper says, "She was a woman who spent a lot of time in the kitchen. She therefore knew what would be practical e.g. a tureen lid that didn't wobble about on the work surface but rested on its handle or a lid to act as another dish."

By 1931 demand for her pottery was growing and so the business needed larger premises and she found them close to Wood & Sons, the company providing her white ware. These became the famous Crown Works and the business prospered until the Second World War when producing non-essential goods became difficult. The final straw came with a catastrophic fire in 1942. The factory was re-opened in 1945 but still under severe difficulties as many lithographic transfers had been destroyed and rebuilding was constrained by rationing.

These years brought good news as well as bad. In 1940 she was presented with the Royal Designer for Industry award by the Royal Society of Arts, the first time that it had been given to a woman and also the first time it had been awarded for pottery design alone.

Picture below: Copyright © Rattibo - Creative Commons License

Susie Cooper's Backstamp from Gray's Pottery

In 1950 Susie Cooper bought a bone china factory and added this material to her design range with new shapes and patterns. A year later, one example from these new ranges, 'The Lion and the Unicorn', was displayed in the Royal Pavilion at the Festival of Britain.

After another fire in 1957, the company merged with R.H & S.L. Plant and this factory produced Susie Cooper's bone china. Unfortunately within a few years Plants had financial difficulties resulting in the whole business being sold to Wedgwood.

At first this worked well as it gave Susie Cooper the time and space to concentrate on designing rather than running a business as well. In spite of difficulties encountered in the move to a big company and losing her husband in 1972, she continued with Wedgwood until 1986 when moved to the Isle of Man although she continued working as a freelance designer there. She died in 1995.

Susie Cooper Plate - Overlapping Triangles

With a career spanning over seventy years, Susie Cooper produced numerous designs. Sharon Gator says that she was so prolific that it would be impossible to say how many. She didn't even confine herself to pottery and bone china she also did designs for wallpaper, cutlery and even children's clothes. In fact, she set up a company with her sister called Susie Cooper Miniatures to make clothes for children.

She always moved with the times, something reflected in her work, and she was also expert in the technicalities of ceramic production allowing her to make technical innovations. Her lithographic transfers were so good that it was hard to see they were not hand painted. Crayons are used in test firings and Susie Cooper decided that these could also be used to produce decorative motifs. The first of these is the 'Pink Hydrangea' range from 1933.

Her bone china had the reputation for being incredibly light and delicate, far more so than that produced by other manufacturers. She experimented and perfected difficult and intricate in-glaze techniques. The pieces were glazed and fired, then decorated and fired again. Although innovative, they were not popular with buyers.

Sharon Gator describes how Susie Cooper worked: "Time taken to design something varied immensely. So often, she would sit and work something out just because it occurred to her, rather than be governed by a set brief. Once she had an idea in her head though, she just wanted to get out on the factory floor and work it out for herself."

Colin Mawston of Decodance is full of praise for Susie Cooper. He says, "Her early Grays Geometrics are some of the most striking and vivid examples of Art Deco pottery that are available today." He goes on to say, "A few years later, Susie designed her Kestral Coffee Pot, which was available in numerous patterns. This was a landmark design and is highly sought after today."

As for prices of Susie Cooper's ceramics, Colin says that prices for her early Geometrics have continued to rise, even when the work of other designers has not. Recently an early Art Deco coffee set was sold at auction for £1500 although the estimate was £500 to £800 while a Geometric teapot, estimated at £30 to £50, sold for £320. Not all Susie Cooper pieces reach these kinds of prices. Some pieces, particularly the later ones, can be bought for as little as £10 making it easy for new collectors to buy.

Looking at Susie Cooper's life, it is easy to see that she dedicated herself to her work and this, combined with her artistic talent and her sureness of touch in moving with the times, has made her one of the great figures of 20th century design.