Eva Zeisel
Encyclopedia
Eva Striker Zeisel is a Hungarian-born
industrial design
er known for her work with ceramics
, primarily from the period after she immigrated to the United States. Her forms are often abstractions of the natural world and human relationships. Work from throughout her prodigious career is included in important museum collections across the world. Zeisel declares herself a "maker of useful things". Zeisel currently resides in New York where she continues to design furniture as well as glass and ceramic objects.
, Hungary in 1906 to a wealthy, highly educated assimilated Jewish family. Her mother, Laura Polanyi Striker, a historian, was the first woman to get a PhD from the University of Budapest. Laura's work on Captain John Smith's adventures in Hungary added fundamentally to our understanding and appreciation of his reliability as a narrator. Laura's brothers, Karl Polanyi
, the sociologist and economist, and Michael Polanyi
, the physical chemist and philosopher of science, are also very well known. Despite her family's intellectual prominence in the field of science, Eva Striker always felt a deep attraction towards art. At 17, Zeisel entered Budapest's Magyar Képzőművészeti Akadémia (Hungarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts) as a painter. However, she eventually decided to pursue a more practical profession and apprenticed herself to the last pottery master in the medieval guild system. From him she learned ceramics from the ground up. After graduating as a journeyman she found work with German ceramic manufacturers.
After almost two years of a glamorous life among intellectuals and artists in decadent Berlin, Eva decided to visit Russia at the age of 26 (1932). She stayed for 5 years.
At the age of 29, after several jobs in the Russian ceramics industry—inspecting factories in the Ukraine as well as designing for the Lomonosov and Dulevo factories—Zeisel was named artistic director of the Russian China and Glass industry. On May 26, 1936, while living in Moscow, Zeisel was arrested. She had been falsely accused of participating in an assassination plot against Joseph Stalin
. She was held in prison for 16 months, 12 of which were spent in solitary confinement. In September, 1937, Zeisel was expelled and deported to Vienna
, Austria. Some of her prison experiences form the basis for Darkness at Noon
, the well known anti-Stalinist novel written by her childhood sweetheart, Arthur Koestler
. It was while in Vienna
that Zeisel re-established contact with her future husband Hans Zeisel, later a noted legal scholar, statistician, and professor at The University of Chicago. A few months after her arrival in Vienna the Nazis invaded, and Eva took the last train out. She and Hans met up in England where they married and sailed for the U.S. with $67 between them.
in New York. In 1946, Zeisel was given the first one-woman show "Eva Zeisel: Designer for Industry", at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York.
Zeisel stopped designing during the 1960s and 1970s, returning to work in the 1980s. Many of her recent designs have found the same success as her earlier designs. Zeisel’s recent designs have included rugs for The Rug Company, a teakettle for Chantal, glasses and giftware for Nambe, ceramics for KleinReid, furniture and gift-ware for Eva Zeisel Originals, a coffee table and stoneware / dinnerware set for Design Within Reach, as well as one of Crate and Barrel’s best selling dinner services "Classic-Century".. "Classic-Century" is an updated version of the Hallcraft sets, most of the pieces made from the original molds (dishwasher safe).
In addition, a bone china tea set, designed in 2000, is being manufactured by the Lomonosov Porcelain factory in St. Petersburg, Russia and her new designs for a line of glass lamps (pendant, wall and table lamps) will be produced in 2011 by Leucos USA.
Eva released two designs in 2010 through EvaZeiselOriginals.com: Eva Zeisel Lounge Chair and Eva Zeisel Salt & Pepper Shakers. The Lounge Chair was featured in the February 2010 issue of O Magazine and The S&P shakers were featured in the April 2010 issues of O Magazine.
Reproduction of earlier designs have been sold at MoMa, Brooklyn Museum and Neue Gallery, as well as other museum gift shops.
Eva Zeisel’s designs are made for use. The inspiration for her sensuous forms often comes from the curves of the human body. Zeisel’s more organic approach to modernism
most likely comes as a reaction to the Bauhaus
aesthetics that were popular at the time of her early training. Her sense of form and color, as well as her use of bird themes, show influence from the Hungarian folk arts she grew up with. Most of Zeisel’s designs, whether in wood, metal, glass, plastic or ceramics, are designed in family groups. Many of her designs nest together creating modular designs that also function to save space.
Zeisel describes her designs in a New York Sun article: “I don’t create angular things. I’m a more circular person—it’s more my character….even the air between my hands is round.”
Among her most collected shapes are the eccentric, biomorphic "Town and Country" dishes, produced by Red Wing Pottery
, in 1947. This set includes the iconic "mother and child" salt and pepper shakers.
, John and Jean comment on their parents' tempestuous relationship in the 1940s and 50s when the children were young. In the film John claims, that both Hans and Eva had dominant personalities, and that this often led to "a collision of forcefields".
, New York; the British Museum
;The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Bröhan Museum
, Germany; as well as Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta and Milwaukee museums and others in the US and abroad.
In the 1980s a 50 year retrospective exhibit of her work organized by Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Smithsonian Institution traveled through the US, Europe and Russia.
In 2004, a significant retrospective exhibition "Eva Zeisel: The Playful Search for Beauty" was organized by the Knoxville Museum of Art
, which subsequently traveled to the Milwaukee Art Museum
, the High Museum, Atlanta, and the Hillwood Museum & Gardens
, Washington D.C.
On December 10, 2006, The Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, San Diego, opened a major centenary retrospective exhibit "Eva Zeisel: Extraordinary Designer at 100", showing her designs from Schramberg (1928) through to current designs for Nambe, Chantal, Eva Zeisel Originals and others (2006). The show ran through August 12, 2007. In the same year, the Pratt Institute Gallery also organized an Exhibition celebrating her centenary.
She is an honorary member of the Royal Society of Industrial Designers, and has received honorary degrees from Parsons (New School), Rhode Island School of Design, the Royal College of Art, and the Hungarian University of the Arts.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
industrial design
Industrial design
Industrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...
er known for her work with ceramics
Ceramics (art)
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
, primarily from the period after she immigrated to the United States. Her forms are often abstractions of the natural world and human relationships. Work from throughout her prodigious career is included in important museum collections across the world. Zeisel declares herself a "maker of useful things". Zeisel currently resides in New York where she continues to design furniture as well as glass and ceramic objects.
Early life and family
She was born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary in 1906 to a wealthy, highly educated assimilated Jewish family. Her mother, Laura Polanyi Striker, a historian, was the first woman to get a PhD from the University of Budapest. Laura's work on Captain John Smith's adventures in Hungary added fundamentally to our understanding and appreciation of his reliability as a narrator. Laura's brothers, Karl Polanyi
Karl Polanyi
Karl Paul Polanyi was a Hungarian philosopher, political economist and economic anthropologist known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and his book The Great Transformation...
, the sociologist and economist, and Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi, FRS was a Hungarian–British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and the theory of knowledge...
, the physical chemist and philosopher of science, are also very well known. Despite her family's intellectual prominence in the field of science, Eva Striker always felt a deep attraction towards art. At 17, Zeisel entered Budapest's Magyar Képzőművészeti Akadémia (Hungarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts) as a painter. However, she eventually decided to pursue a more practical profession and apprenticed herself to the last pottery master in the medieval guild system. From him she learned ceramics from the ground up. After graduating as a journeyman she found work with German ceramic manufacturers.
Early career, imprisonment, and emigration
In 1928 Eva Striker became the designer for the Schramberger Majolikafabrik in the Black Forest region of Germany where she worked for about two years creating many playfully geometric designs for tea sets, vases, inkwells and other ceramic items. Her designs at Schramberg were largely influenced by modern architecture. In addition, she had just learned to draft with compass and ruler and was proud to put them to use. In 1930, Eva moved to Berlin, designing for the Carstens factories.After almost two years of a glamorous life among intellectuals and artists in decadent Berlin, Eva decided to visit Russia at the age of 26 (1932). She stayed for 5 years.
At the age of 29, after several jobs in the Russian ceramics industry—inspecting factories in the Ukraine as well as designing for the Lomonosov and Dulevo factories—Zeisel was named artistic director of the Russian China and Glass industry. On May 26, 1936, while living in Moscow, Zeisel was arrested. She had been falsely accused of participating in an assassination plot against Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. She was held in prison for 16 months, 12 of which were spent in solitary confinement. In September, 1937, Zeisel was expelled and deported to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria. Some of her prison experiences form the basis for Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940...
, the well known anti-Stalinist novel written by her childhood sweetheart, Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
. It was while in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
that Zeisel re-established contact with her future husband Hans Zeisel, later a noted legal scholar, statistician, and professor at The University of Chicago. A few months after her arrival in Vienna the Nazis invaded, and Eva took the last train out. She and Hans met up in England where they married and sailed for the U.S. with $67 between them.
Later career to present day
Zeisel's career in design continued to develop in the United States. In addition to designing for companies such as Hall China, Rosenthal China, Castleton China, Western Stoneware, Federal Glass, Heisey Glass and Red Wing Pottery, Zeisel developed and taught the first course in Ceramics for Industry at the Pratt InstitutePratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
in New York. In 1946, Zeisel was given the first one-woman show "Eva Zeisel: Designer for Industry", at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York.
Zeisel stopped designing during the 1960s and 1970s, returning to work in the 1980s. Many of her recent designs have found the same success as her earlier designs. Zeisel’s recent designs have included rugs for The Rug Company, a teakettle for Chantal, glasses and giftware for Nambe, ceramics for KleinReid, furniture and gift-ware for Eva Zeisel Originals, a coffee table and stoneware / dinnerware set for Design Within Reach, as well as one of Crate and Barrel’s best selling dinner services "Classic-Century".. "Classic-Century" is an updated version of the Hallcraft sets, most of the pieces made from the original molds (dishwasher safe).
In addition, a bone china tea set, designed in 2000, is being manufactured by the Lomonosov Porcelain factory in St. Petersburg, Russia and her new designs for a line of glass lamps (pendant, wall and table lamps) will be produced in 2011 by Leucos USA.
Eva released two designs in 2010 through EvaZeiselOriginals.com: Eva Zeisel Lounge Chair and Eva Zeisel Salt & Pepper Shakers. The Lounge Chair was featured in the February 2010 issue of O Magazine and The S&P shakers were featured in the April 2010 issues of O Magazine.
Reproduction of earlier designs have been sold at MoMa, Brooklyn Museum and Neue Gallery, as well as other museum gift shops.
Eva Zeisel’s designs are made for use. The inspiration for her sensuous forms often comes from the curves of the human body. Zeisel’s more organic approach to modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
most likely comes as a reaction to the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
aesthetics that were popular at the time of her early training. Her sense of form and color, as well as her use of bird themes, show influence from the Hungarian folk arts she grew up with. Most of Zeisel’s designs, whether in wood, metal, glass, plastic or ceramics, are designed in family groups. Many of her designs nest together creating modular designs that also function to save space.
Zeisel describes her designs in a New York Sun article: “I don’t create angular things. I’m a more circular person—it’s more my character….even the air between my hands is round.”
Among her most collected shapes are the eccentric, biomorphic "Town and Country" dishes, produced by Red Wing Pottery
Red Wing Pottery
Red Wing pottery refers to American stoneware, pottery, or dinnerware items made by any of various companies in Red Wing, Minnesota. The first known pottery was established in the late 1870s and production continued under various company names until the last business, Red Wing Potteries, Inc.,...
, in 1947. This set includes the iconic "mother and child" salt and pepper shakers.
Personal life
Eva raised two children with Hans: son, John Zeisel and daughter, Jean Richards. In the documentary Throwing Curves: Eva ZeiselThrowing Curves: Eva Zeisel
Throwing Curves : Eva Zeisel is a 2002 documentary film directed by Jyll Johnstone. The film follows and interviews then-97-year-old Hungarian industrial designer and ceramic artist Eva Zeisel. It examines how her upbringing, fame, and personality have influenced her work and reputation to the...
, John and Jean comment on their parents' tempestuous relationship in the 1940s and 50s when the children were young. In the film John claims, that both Hans and Eva had dominant personalities, and that this often led to "a collision of forcefields".
Museums and exhibitions
Zeisel’s works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum; Brooklyn museum; Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum and The Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York; the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
;The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Bröhan Museum
Bröhan Museum
The Bröhan Museum is a museum of art and design in Berlin. It is devoted to Art Nouveau, Art Deco and functionalism, and occupies a late-classicist former barracks in Charlottenburg, opposite Charlottenburg Palace....
, Germany; as well as Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta and Milwaukee museums and others in the US and abroad.
In the 1980s a 50 year retrospective exhibit of her work organized by Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Smithsonian Institution traveled through the US, Europe and Russia.
In 2004, a significant retrospective exhibition "Eva Zeisel: The Playful Search for Beauty" was organized by the Knoxville Museum of Art
Knoxville Museum of Art
The Knoxville Museum of Art is a contemporary art museum located at 1050 World's Fair Park in Knoxville, Tennessee. The KMA is committed to developing exhibitions by emerging artists of national and international reputation.- History :...
, which subsequently traveled to the Milwaukee Art Museum
Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum is located on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Beginning around 1872, multiple organizations were founded in order to bring an art gallery to Milwaukee, as the city was still a growing port town with little or no facilities to hold major art exhibitions...
, the High Museum, Atlanta, and the Hillwood Museum & Gardens
Hillwood Museum & Gardens
Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens is a decorative arts museum in Washington, D.C., USA. The former residence of businesswoman, diplomat, philanthropist and collector Marjorie Merriweather Post, Hillwood is known for its large decorative arts collection that focuses heavily on the House of Romanov...
, Washington D.C.
On December 10, 2006, The Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, San Diego, opened a major centenary retrospective exhibit "Eva Zeisel: Extraordinary Designer at 100", showing her designs from Schramberg (1928) through to current designs for Nambe, Chantal, Eva Zeisel Originals and others (2006). The show ran through August 12, 2007. In the same year, the Pratt Institute Gallery also organized an Exhibition celebrating her centenary.
Awards
In 2005, Zeisel won the Lifetime Achievement award from the Cooper-Hewett National Design Museum. . She has also received the two highest civilian awards from the Hungarian government, as well as the Pratt Legends award and awards from the Industrial Design Society and Alfred University.She is an honorary member of the Royal Society of Industrial Designers, and has received honorary degrees from Parsons (New School), Rhode Island School of Design, the Royal College of Art, and the Hungarian University of the Arts.
Publications
- Eva Zeisel on Design by Eva Zeisel, Overlook Press 2004
- Eva Zeisel: The Playful Search for Beauty by Lucie Young, Chronicle Books 2003
- Eva Zeisel, Designer for Industry, 1984. (Out of print. Available through EvaZeiselForum)
- Eva Zeisel: Throwing Curves 2002 (documentary film, Canobie Films, Director: Jyll Johnstone
- Regular Bulletins from EvaZeiselForum
- In preparation: Eva Zeisel: A Prison Memoir. eBook.