Susan Williams-Ellis

Susan Williams-Ellis (6 June 1918 – 26 November 2007) was a British pottery designer, who was best known for co-founding Portmeirion Pottery. She was the eldest daughter of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. Background Williams-Ellis was born in Guildford, Surrey, England, in the house of artist and critic Roger Fry. Her father, Sir Clough, was an eminent architect; Williams-Ellis' mother was writer Amabel Strachey, cousin of author and Bloomsbury figure Lytton Strachey. Her parents were friends of other members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Augustus John and Virginia Woolf. Williams-Ellis' godfather was Rudyard Kipling. She was determined to be an artist from an early age. In the 1930s, Susan studied ceramics with Bernard and David Leach while she was at Dartington Hall School. At Chelsea School of Art, during the 1940s, her tutors included Graham Sutherland for painting and Henry Moore for sculpture, who helped to develop Susan's innate feeling for three-dimensional shape and form. Career Williams-Ellis studied Fine Art at Chelsea Polytechnic, where her tutors included Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland.