Hannah Borger Overbeck

Hannah Borger Overbeck was an American artist from Cambridge City, Indiana, and one of the six Overbeck sisters. Four of them founded Overbeck Pottery in 1911, and Hannah was its designer: the sunflowers, amaryllis, rosehips, oak leaves and acorns that ran around their pots began as her studies.

She worked mostly in watercolour and gouache, flattening a flower into shape and colour without ever losing the plant. Ill health kept her close to home for much of her life and her name never travelled the way Morris's did, which is the only reason these are not as famous as they deserve to be.

Her studies were made small, but they were designed as pattern, so they scale to a whole wall without falling apart. Printed large, a single Overbeck sunflower does the work of a painting.