Zeisel’s Early Career
Eva Zeisel’s first aspiration as an artist led her to pursue painting when she was just 17, but she soon abandoned that pursuit and began working with ceramic arts in the early 1920s. A native Hungarian born in Budapest, many report that her first inspiration in this direction came from a peasant pottery collection owned by her aunt.
She apprenticed with a local potter in Hungary and graduated as a journeyman prior to discovering modern design in 1925 on a trip to Paris for Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, widely regarded as the birthplace of “art deco.” Zeisel wrote some time later that she found modernist design to be “too cold.” So while her own work was indeed modernist in nature, she created “humane, humorous versions of it,” as noted in her obituary by William L. Hamilton appearing in The New York Times.
Her first real collections were produced by manufacturers of Hungarian ceramics, and by 1926 her work was displayed at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial. In 1928, the Schramberg Majolica Factory in Schramberg, Germany employed her as a designer. A vivid orange inkwell Zeisel designed during this period, which displays much more of an art deco influence than her later dinnerware, can be viewed on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website. (See link below).
During the 1930s she moved to Berlin, where she met her future husband Hans Zeisel, and then on to Russia. While working as artistic director overseeing the Russian china and glass industry, she was falsely accused of participation in a plot to assassinate Joseph Stalin and spent close to a year and a half in prison. After her release in 1937 she was extricated to Vienna, but soon fled as the Nazis began their occupation, according to The Eva Zeisel Forum. She then married Hans, who had waited for her in England. The newlyweds moved to the United States in 1938, and Zeisel quickly began to establish herself as an artist in a new country. In 1939 she developed the department of ceramic arts in industrial design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and began teaching there, but a number of years would pass before she became widely known on American soil.
Zeisel’s Big American Debut
Zeisel’s “big break” came in the early 1940s when Castleton China of Pennsylvania asked the Museum of Modern Art in New York for assistance in finding an artist adept at creating modernist tableware, and Zeisel was recommended. And while her “Museum” dinnerware designs were complete years earlier, Word War II delayed the production of this collection until the mid-1940s. She was featured in a one woman show at MoMA introducing her designs to the American public. The Museum dinnerware set is a part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection, and can be viewed on the museum's website. (See link below).
The esthetics of the Museum dinnerware collection were acclaimed by critics, but it took some time for the American public to embrace the idea of formal dining with a modern twist. They were clinging to traditional china patterns and the fancily etched glass dining sets being produced by elegant glassware manufacturers at the time. Fortunately for Zeisel though, the publicity she gained led to more commissions and commercial success, and she even accepted an assignment designing for Heisey Glass Co., a prolific elegant glassware manufacturer, in 1954.
Among her other achievements recognized by collectors are the Hallcraft I “Tomorrow’s Classic” and Hallcraft II “Century” lines she designed for Hall China. However, her “Town & Country” collection produced by Red Wing from 1947-1956 is the line most coveted by Zeisel fans today, according to Modfather.com. The shapes in this line are similar to “American Modern” tableware designed by Russell Wright, and she was very likely influenced by his work.
Among the other companies that manufactured and sold Zeisel’s designs over many decades are Sears, Roebuck & Co. (one of Zeisel’s first tableware designs), Zsolnay in Hungary, Federal Glass, Western Stoneware, Hyalyn, and Phillip Rosenthal in Germany producing “Eva” dinnerware under the Thomas and Johann Haviland brand.
She continued as an instructor for the Pratt Institute until the early 1950s when she moved to Chicago after her husband accepted a teaching position there. She found herself maintaining homes in both Chicago and New York after 1954, and continued to work as a designer through the ‘50s although at a less frenetic pace than before.
Zeisel taught at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1960, and continued to design glassware, giftware and dinnerware for a number of companies on a limited basis in the early '60s. She also obtained a mechanical patent for a metal chair she exhibited at the Milan Triennale in 1964. By the mid-1960s, however, her energy was refocused on her family, scholarly pursuits, and political activism, according to The Eva Zeisel Forum.
Zeisel’s Honors and Achievements
In addition to the aforementioned museums in New York, Zeisel’s work has been exhibited by The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Brohan Museum in Berlin, and a traveling exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution among many others. Additionally, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs de Montreal recognized her achievements with a retrospective titled “Eva Zeisel: Designer for Industry” in 1984 and The Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art featured “Lost Molds and Found Dinnerware: Rediscovering Eva Zeisel's Hallcraft” in 1999.
Zeisel embraced a renewed interest in design later in life as well as accepting many accolades for her work. She designed small collections of ceramics, glass and metal objects in the 1980s and ‘90s and oversaw reissues of some of her earlier work during this period thus attracting a new wave of Zeisel aficionados. In the 2000s, numerous books, lectures and films honored her as a designer, and a collecting group was founded furthering interest in her work.
In 2004, she published a book, Eva Zeisel on Design: The Magic Language of Things through The Overlook Press, which is still in print. She received the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005, and numerous other honors and awards were bestowed upon this remarkable woman during her distinguished career. (See the link below to The Zeisel Forum’s detailed chronology through 2009 to learn more.)
There’s no denying that more than 65 years after her Museum dinnerware collection was introduced, Zeisel’s work is reaching a new audience with a line of frames produced by Wexel Art in 2011 and Crate & Barrel selling an updated version of her Hallcraft dinnerware called “Classic Century.” Other rug and furniture designs conceived by this visionary are also available from varied retailers, including Eva Zeisel Originals online. A line of lighting fixtures she designed is also scheduled for release in 2012. These contemporary collections, along with the vintage Zeisel pieces avidly sought by collectors, continue to keep this remarkable woman’s design legacy alive in stylish homes across America.
“The joy of creating beautiful things for people ‘to please the eye, and invite the hand to touch’ is evident in all of Eva Zeisel's designs, whether produced in ceramic, plastic, metal, wood or glass.” - The Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art
