Eva Zeisel

Born Eva Amalia Striker, November 13, 1906 was a Hungarian industrial designer with a career that spans more than 75 years and 100,000 realized designs. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Budapest for one year from 1923 to 1924. After a pottery apprenticeship, she set up a workshop in Kispest ceramics factory in Budapest. While there she developed prototypes for industrial production. At the end of the 1920s she produced hand-painted geometric forms were called Constructivist-style wares known for the polychromatic decoration. In 1930 she moved to Berlin and work for several ceramic companies including Christian Carstens, Lomonosov and Dulevo in the Soviet Union. In 1935 she was appointed artistic director of the porcelain factory of the Russian Republic. A year later she falsely accused of conspiring to assissinate Joseph Stalin. After a year of imprisonment she was released and made her way to New York. 

Zeisel declares herself a "maker of useful things" while her forms are often abstractions of the natural world and human relationships. She is quoted as stating, "all of my work is mother and child." A year after moving to New York she founded the department of ceramic arts industrial design at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn where she taught until 1952. Work from throughout her prodigious career is included in important museum collections across the world. One of her most famous pieces was Museum White (1942-1945) which exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. This exhibition made her the first designer in America to create an all white modern dinner service.

Her masterful design work has earned her several awards to include a senior award from the National Endowment for the Arts; an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Arts, London, Parsons New School, New York, as well as Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island; Industrial Design Society of America Bronze Apple; Living Legend Award from Pratt Institute, and Russell Wright Award for Design Excellence. In 2005, for her profound, long-term contribution to contemporary design practice she received the National Design Award for her Lifetime Achievement. She also has a street named after her in Schramberg , Germany designated EvaZeiselStrasse. At age 99 she was still designing furniture as well as glass and ceramic objects for a variety of companies including Crate & Barrel, KleinReid, and Nambe. At age 105, Eva passed away in her New York home December 30, 2011. 

To see Eva Zeisel speak about her life as a designer, click here to watch her 2001 TED Talk.