Clarice Cliff was one of the most influential ceramic artists of the 20th century. Born in 1899 in the Staffordshire Potteries, she began working life as a factory girl. By 1928, she had launched her own range of pottery, known as "Bizarre." A dazzling feast of color, it blazed a trail through the homes of interwar Britain. But if Cliff's rise from apprentice gilder to art director was remarkable--all the more so for being a woman--it was not without its tensions: for years she conducted a secret relationship with her married boss. Fusing art, design, and industry and vividly evoking the texture of women's lives between the wars, this is a compelling portrait of the complex, talented woman whose work is, for many, the epitome of Art Deco.