Unique Stoneware Vessel by Ruth Duckworth, circa 1960

Ruth Duckworth was born in Hamburg, Germany, as the youngest of five children. The daughter of a Jewish woman, Duckworth had to leave Nazi Germany for her studies in sculpture and drawing, attending the Liverpool College of Art in 1936. She later studied at the Hammersmith School of Art, the City and Guilds of London Art School and the Central School of Arts and Crafts. She joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1964 and, upon retiring from the university in 1977, moved her studio space to a former pickle plant in Lakeview, Chicago. Her work is featured at such institutions as the Art Institute of Chicago; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Windsor Castle, England; Stuttgart Museum, Germany; National Museum of Modern Art, Japan; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, The Netherlands, Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; National Museum of Scotland; Kestner Museum, Germany; Schleswig Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Germany; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Germany; City Museum, Bassano Del Grappa, Italy; Buckinghamshire County Museum, England; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Utah; American Craft Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Art Museum, California; Evanston Public Library, Illinois and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.