Demitasse Cup and Saucer

c. 1943

Demitasse Cup and Saucer, c. 1943. Gertrud Natzler (American, born Vienna, Austria, 1908–1971), Otto Natzler (American, born Vienna, Austria, 1908–2007). Earthenware with gunmetal metallic glaze; cup: 5.7 x 8.8 x 6.5 cm (2 1/4 x 3 7/16 x 2 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Catherine Glynn Benkaim 2020.89 Getrud and Otto Natzler were two of the most important American artisan designers working in ceramics in the 20th century. They were both born in Vienna, Austria, where they began their careers absorbing the early modernist aesthetic of that city in the 1920s. The Natzlers adapted the Viennese Secessionist emphasis on the purity of form in their early work as seen in this starkly unadorned cup and saucer. This cup and saucer were created shortly after Gertrud and Otto Natzler emigrated to the United States from Austria in 1938 to escape the onslaught of Nazi terror.