Susan & Steven Kemenyffy (B 1941 & 1943) American, Original Raku Ceramic Sculpture. Fired in two pieces. Titled "Murf's Mysterious Lady." Signed along edges. Depicts three different stylized figures, two on one side and the third on the other.

Size: 28 x 10 x 60 in. 

#2363 . 

Steven Kemenyffy was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1943, and he and his mother were not reunited with his father, who had been serving in the war effort, until 1949. During the interim they lived with his aunt who worked as a potter in Baden-Baden, Germany, instilling an early fascination in pottery in him. The family immigrated to Rock Island, Illinois in 1951, where his mother became a seamstress and his father an engineer. After earning a BS in Mathematics at Augustana College in 1964 he attended a Peter Voulkos workshop and took ceramics classes at University of Iowa. It was here he met Susan B. Hale, an artist from Springfield, Massachusetts. Born in 1941, she had earned a BFA from Syracuse University in 1963 and was pursuing a Masters at Iowa, studying drawing and graphic design. Together, they were responsible for the popularization of the American ceramic raku movement, based on the traditional Japanese technique. In 1969, after he had received an MFA in Ceramics and she had received an MFA in printmaking, he became a Professor of Ceramic Art at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, where he taught off-and-on for forty years. They wed in 1970, and both became artists-in-residence and teachers at numerous institutions around the country, producing much of their work together ever since. The Kemenyffys are commonly recognized for their experimental abstract work, which combines biomorphic forms that allude to traditional shapes of tiles, vases, and containers with stylized humanoid illustrations on the surface. They are often over six feet tall and include mixed media elements, with their signatures scrawled along the edges. Susan clarified in 1987 that Steven is the sculptor and she is the drawer, with her illustrations usually inspired by people and things around her that are designed in tandem with her husband’s shaping process. After they both retired from teaching in the 2010s they continued to produce artwork out of their home studio in McKean, Pennsylvania. The Kemenyffy's work is in the Carnegie Mellon University Museum, Erie Art Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and many unique pieces can be found in private collections around the world.

Some chips on edges.