Frances Senska
| Frances Senska | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 9, 1914 Batanga, Cameroon |
| Died | December 25, 2009 (aged 95) Bozeman, Montana, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Ceramics |
| Movement | Bauhaus |
Frances Maude Senska (March 9, 1914 – December 25, 2009) was an art professor and artist specializing in ceramics who taught at Montana State University – Bozeman from 1946 to 1973. She was known as the "grandmother of ceramics in Montana". During her career, she trained a number of now internationally known ceramic artists.
Senska was born in the port city of Batanga in the German Empire colony of Kamerun, (now Batanga, Cameroon). She was the only child of Frank Radcliff Senska and Georgia B. Senska (née Herald), Presbyterian missionaries. Her father was a physician who founded Sakbayémé Hospital in the town of Sakbayeme in the highlands region of Bassa in Kamerun, her mother was a teacher who worked at the local missionary school. Frances was schooled at home; it took three days to walk to the nearest public school, and her parents felt this was too far away in case she fell ill with a tropical disease.
She came to America for the first time in 1929. She graduated from University High School in Iowa City, Iowa. She earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1935 and 1939, respectively. Her undergraduate training was in lithography, and her graduate degree in applied arts (specializing in sculpture.)
She taught art at Grinnell College from 1939 to 1942. In the summer of 1941, she took art classes at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, California. But in 1942, her teaching position at Grinnell was eliminated so that the college could hire a physics professor. That summer, she briefly studied ceramics under László Moholy-Nagy at the School of Design (now the IIT Institute of Design) in Chicago. Moholy-Nagy had a strong influence on Senska, influencing not only her ceramic design but her teaching style as well.
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