Overbeck Sisters

The Overbeck sisters (Margaret, Hannah, Elizabeth, and Mary Frances) were American women potters and artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement who established Overbeck Pottery in their Cambridge City, Indiana, home in 1911 with the goal of producing original, high-quality, hand-wrought ceramics as their primary source of income. The sisters are best known for their fanciful figurines, their skill in matte glazes, and their stylized designs of plants and animals in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles. The women owned and handled all aspects of their artistic enterprise until 1955, when the last of the sisters died and the pottery closed. As a result of their efforts, the Overbecks managed to become economically independent and earned a modest living from the sales of their art.

Examples of their art have been exhibited at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition (1915) and the Century of Progress (1933), as well as in exhibitions hosted by the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and at other venues in Paris, France, and the United States. In addition, their art is included in several museum collections, and has been featured in ceramic arts and collectibles magazines and a 2006 episode of Antiques Roadshow. The Overbeck family's Cambridge City home/studio was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976; the present-day home is maintained as a private residence.