Susie Cooper Bone China

Susie Cooper was an English ceramic designer working in several Stoke-on-Trent pottery industries from the '20s to the '80s. She showed exceptional skill in illustration from an early age and in 1922, joined the ceramics firm A.E. Gray & Co. Ltd. as a way to earn entry into the Royal College of Art. A.E. Gray quickly noted her unique talents as both a painter and designer and had her creating hand-painted floral designs for their manufacture. In 1929, she set up her own business, Susie Cooper Potteries.

In the following years, her business was successful and she worked for many pottery firms in the area, including Wedgwood. In 1940, she was awarded Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts, a high distinction of industrial design. It is well known that Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was a great enthusiast of her work.

Susie Cooper's modern shapes and abstract designs did not just fare well in England. They also became common in middle class American homes by the '40s. In 1966, the Susie Cooper company was acquired by Wedgwood.

Quick Facts

• The name Susie Cooper appears with various company stamps on many pieces of ceramics
• Susie Cooper was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1979 for her services to the ceramics industry
• A group of Susie Cooper pottery pieces with various dates sold at Sotheby's Olympia in May 2003 for $904