Ceramic artist
Gertrud Amon was born in Vienna. In 1937, Gertrud won the Silver Medal at the Exposition Internationale in Paris, along with Otto Natzler, whom she married the same year. In 1938, following the Anschluss, Gertrud and Otto Natzler immigrated to the USA. At first they settled in Los Angeles. They opened a ceramic workshop in Santa Susanna (?), California.
Gertrud Natzler held a number of exhibitions in the US and abroad, including at the Fine Art Gallery in San Diego, California, in 1940 and 1942; at San Francisco Art Museum, in 1943 and 1963; at Los Angeles County Museum, in 1944 and 1966; at the Art Institute, Chicago, in 1946 and 1963 and at the Jewish Museum, New York, in 1958. Gertrud Natzler also exhibited at the Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem, in 1959 and in Haifa; at Kunstgewerbemus, Zurich, and at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Gertrud Natzler won many regional, national and international prizes for ceramics, including 1939, 1940, 1941, 1946, 1956 purchase prizes at National Ceramic Exhibition, Syracuse Museum of Art, New York. In 1948, 1949, and 1951, she won first prizes at Los Angeles County Fair; 1952, 1955, 1956, 1957 at the California State Fair. In 1962 she won the Silver Medal at the International Ceramic Exhibition, Prague. In 1966 there was an extensive retrospective exhibition of works of both Gertrud and Otto Natzler at the Los Angeles County Museum. In 1968 the Natzlers were subject of the documentary film: The ceramic Art of the Natzlers produced by the Los Angeles County Museum, (received Christopher award), and of the book about Natzler ceramics by Otto Natzler.
The works of art of Gertrud and Otto Natzler are on display in permanent collections of a number of American and European museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC, and the Kunstgewerbemus, Zurich.