Ruth Duckworth
American, born Germany, 1919 - 2009Black Angel, 1999
Not on view
Porcelain
Dimensions23 x 8 1/8 x 6 5/8 in.
Gift of Dr. Robert and Deanna Harris Burger, 2021.200
Sharing a visual vocabulary with artists like Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore, Ruth Duckworth’s abstract forms are reductive, condensed, and refined. She was heavily inspired by nature and believed that everything has a sense of unity. It is this idea that she wishes to emulate in her ceramics. Her work is not overly adorned or cluttered, but rather simple and subdued. She drew inspiration from ancient female sculptures from the islands around Greece. Duckworth responded to the harmonious proportions and the graceful interplay of angular and curving contours of these ancient abstracted figures. This sculpture merely alludes to the figure rather than attempting a naturalistic depiction.
