Eva Amalia Zeisel

Hungarian-born industrial designer known for her work with ceramics. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Zeisel

In 1946, her all-white modern dinner service – a first by an American designer – was honored with an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Met and the V&A. In 2005, she was awarded the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

Subject of a New Yorker profile entitled "The Present Moment," by Susannah Lessard April 13, 1987; requires New Yorker log-in.

Eva Zeisel gave a "TED talk" in 2001 (viewable online).

A 100th birthday tribute, Eva Zeisel at 100: A Lifetime of Masterwork in Design, retrospective of her work was held at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, October 4-November 18, 2006. An article about the exhibit, and Eva Zeisel's career, appeared at acrStudio.com

The design blog Design Within Reach published a 103rd birthday tribute in 2009, as did "If It's Hip It's Here": "Age 103 And Still Designing. The Life & Work Of Legend Eva Zeisel".

A 105th birthday tribute published in the New York Times Magazine, Nov. 21, 2011, entitled '"Solitary Refinement"'. It marked the publication of Eva Zeisel's A Prison Memoir.

New York Times obituary appeared December 30, 2011:

" . . . Born Eva Amalia Striker in Budapest on Nov. 13, 1906, she was the daughter of Laura Polanyi Striker and Alexander Striker. Her father owned a textile factory. Her mother was a historian, feminist and political activist.

In 1923, Ms. Zeisel entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest to study painting. She withdrew three semesters later, inspired by an aunt’s Hungarian peasant pottery collection to become a ceramist. She apprenticed to Jakob Karapancsik, a member of the guild of chimney sweepers, oven makers, roof tilers, well diggers and potters, and graduated as a journeyman.

During a summer trip to Paris in 1925, she visited the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes — the source of the term Art Deco — which exhibited work by leading new designers like Le Corbusier and which introduced Ms. Zeisel to modern movements like the Bauhaus and the International style. She later wrote that she thought modernist design “too cold,” a quality she spent much of her professional life trying to keep out of her own work with humane, humorous versions of it . . . ."

A detailed and informative piece on Eva Zeisel's work appears in MCMDaily / a magazine for midcentury modern enthusiasts [online], edition of June 6, 2015.

An homage to Eva Zeisel appears at Fountly.com, July 22, 2014.