Susan Kadish, Old Westbury sculptor nationally recognized for innovative ceramics, dies at 83

Susan Kadish brought an artist’s eye to nearly everything she touched — from towering Buddha sculptures and ceramics to orderly garden rows, handmade jewelry and even colorful creations in the kitchen.

"She was really the most creative person I ever met," said Elizabeth Sobieski, of Manhattan, Kadish’s friend of more than 40 years. "Everything she did just showed this tremendous creative hand."

Kadish, an Old Westbury sculptor known for blending ancient ceramic traditions with contemporary experimentation, died on Tuesday after a brief illness. She was 83.

Finding her passion

Born in Brooklyn to a family of fashion designers, Kadish studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology before turning to sculpture.

During the 1980s and '90s, Kadish trained in alabaster and marble in Italy and New York. The scale of the work struck Sobieski, who remembered the petite artist taking on massive pieces of stone.

"She was 5-feet-nothing making these huge marble sculptures," Sobieski said. "I was just blown away when I saw her artwork."

Kadish later turned to clay, drawing on Japanese and Korean ceramics and experimenting with raku, pit and saggar firing while incorporating metal, horsehair, beads, leather and rope into her pieces.

After years of trial and error, Kadish patented a process in 2019 using liquid silver that left thousands of iridescent droplets across her ceramic surfaces.

"It gave her great joy," Sobieski said, because the finish made a traditional subject such as the Buddha "something uniquely her own."

In 2017, Agora Gallery in Manhattan presented "The Fire Within," a solo exhibit of her ceramics. The following year, her sculpture "Nirvana" was featured in an exhibit of works from the permanent collection of the American Museum of Ceramic Art in California. In 2019, ArtTour International magazine named her one of its Top 60 Masters.

Lauren Rosenblum, of Marlboro, New Jersey, who gave Kadish private lessons in drawing and painting, said Kadish possessed an artistic instinct that went beyond technique.

"You have to be technically good to be an artist, but you also have to have imagination and intuition, and she really used that," Rosenblum said. Her Buddha sculptures, she added, were "almost kind of like her own category."

‘Driven to create’

That creative impulse extended beyond the studio.

Sobieski remembered Kadish’s elaborate gardens, whimsical hats and colorful table settings. Even when Kadish became unable to throw clay, she continued going to a ceramics studio to paint pots until about two months before her death.

"She could not live without making art and making beauty," Sobieski said. "She was driven to create."

Kadish and her husband, Lawrence Kadish, also supported programs and educational initiatives at the Museum of American Armor in Old Bethpage.

Michael Sapraicone, a senior museum trustee, remembered Kadish as particularly attentive to the museum’s volunteers and its educational mission.

"Talk about generosity, you talk about caring, you certainly talk about the Kadishes, and I’m gonna say especially Mrs. Kadish," Sapraicone said.

Her 'guiding light'

But those closest to Kadish said family remained at the center of her life. She and Lawrence Kadish, a real estate entrepreneur, were married for 65 years.

"They were always madly in love," Sobieski said. Even after decades of marriage, if he forgot their goodnight kiss, Susan would affectionately remind him.

Kadish was also her husband’s muse, inspiring poems and love songs over the course of their marriage. Their son Charles Kadish described his mother as his father’s "guiding light."

"There was not a day when my father wouldn’t reference their love," he said.

Their Old Westbury home reflected how deeply art was woven into their lives. Sobieski recalled seeing Kadish's sculptures throughout the house alongside a carefully curated art collection the couple built together.

But Charles Kadish said that for all of his mother’s devotion to art, it was family that mattered most.

"While extraordinarily talented as an artist, her real passion was for her family," he said. "Her artwork is a lasting reminder of her creativity but her legacy of love will live forever."

In addition to her husband, Lawrence Kadish, of Old Westbury, Susan Kadish is survived by her sister, Sharon Flamer, of Old Westbury; sons Charles Kadish, of Old Westbury, Howard Kadish, of Oyster Bay, and William Kadish, of Hoover, Alabama; five grandchildren; a great-granddaughter; and several nieces and nephews.

Funeral services will be Friday at 1 p.m. at Gutterman’s Memorial Chapel in Woodbury, followed by interment at New Montefiore Cemetery in West Babylon.