Barbara Esther Lavater was born in Winterthur on September 28, 1913. Her father, Emil Lavater, was an engineer, salesman, and personnel manager at Maschinenfabrik Gebrüder Sulzer in Winterthur. Her mother, Mary Lavater-Sloman ( born Mary Helen Sloman), came from a Hamburg shipping family and was a writer. Barbara was the eldest daughter of four children. She received her Christian name, "Warja" from a Russian nanny when the family was in Moscow.
Warja's mother Mary Lavater Sloman was born in Hamburg in 1891 and died in Zurich in 1980. She came from the Sloman family of shipowners in Hamburg. Her father, was an engineer and worked for the Sulzer machine factory. In this capacity he traveled with his family to Moscow and they spent the period of World War 1 there. In 1919 they had to flee Moscow under terrible circumstances, after the Bolshviks had stolen everything from them. They returned to Winterthur. Emil Lavater, was transferred to Athens in 1921. Warja lived there with her family for two years and was taught by her mother. A large part of the lessons concerned the Greek gods. Back in Winterthur, she attended high school, but dropped out before taking her Matura to pursue an artistic education at the Kunstgewerbe Schule Zürich.
Education
In 1931, Warja began her education at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. After the preliminary course, which was based on Johannes Itten, she was accepted into Ernst Keller's graphic class and learned the basics of design from him. Keller always began his lessons with the most important thing, letter-graphic drawing, as Lavater recalled in retrospect. This involved questions of visual composition and effect, as well as practical execution from sketch to final drawing. In March 1935, Lavater completed her training as a graphic designer with a diploma. Her performance was evaluated with an overall grade of good to very good and she was certified fit for the profession. Years later, Lavater was still full of admiration and gratitude for her graphics teacher: "A teacher who was tailor-made for my way of expressing myself, who taught me everything that I have subsequently applied and developed throughout my life."
