Eva Striker Zeisel (1906 - 2011) was a pioneer industrial designer and ceramist best known for using elegant and curvy forms to create objects that were beautiful as well as useful. Born in Budapest, her father owned a textile factory and her mother was a historian, feminist and political activist. Zeisel studied painting at the Hungarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts before she apprenticed herself to a potter at a porcelain factory, an unusual path for an educated woman at that time. She was the first woman member of the Hungarian Guild of Chimney Sweeps, Oven Makers, Roof Tilers, Well Diggers and Potters. After graduating she designed for factories in Germany and in Russia, where in 1935 she was given the prestigious title of artistic director for the China and Glass Industry. While working in Russia, Zeisel was falsely accused of plotting to kill Stalin and spent 16 harsh months in prison, 12 of which she was kept in solitary confinement. Upon her release, she married Hans Zeisel. They lived in Vienna briefly, before the threat of Hitler made them leave to America. Here she could re-establish her career as a designer. Zeisel started teaching ceramics at New York’s Pratt Institute, rejecting the label of "craft" and teaching ceramics as an industrial design class. Zeisel was also commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art and Castleton China, to design an all-white modern dinner service, which was shown in 1946 at MoMA's first exhibition devoted to a female designer. She continued designing until her death in 2011 at age 105. "To create things to be used, to be loved, to be with, to give as a gift, to fit into a normal day, to match a festive mood, to be proud of," Zeisel wrote in 2004, "is to create the culture of life that surrounds us." Illustration @_patriciamafra_ Images via the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum and ©Eva Zeisel Originals, LLC #herchive #archive #EvaZeisel #zeisel #womenartist #womendesigner #visionary #pioneer #industrialdesign #design #ceramic #modernism #ceramicdesign #3dillustration #blender #femaledesigner #arthistory #designhistory #modernism (em Budapest, Hungary) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4fffpAoTm3/?igshid=t2a4us37za5v
