Eva Zeisel Survived Stalin, Nazis, Created Beauty: Appreciation

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-05/eva-zeisel-survived-stalin-nazis-created-beauty-appreciation.html


Zsolnay Belly Button Vase (small)” (1983) by Eva Zeisel. Based on her earlier stacking “Belly Button Room Dividers,” the body and indentation of this vase suggests a navel, among other forms.

Eva Zeisel, who died Friday at 105, designed some of the 20th century’s most seductive objects and survived its greatest horrors.

Arthur Koestler, her lifelong friend and sometime lover, based his novel “Darkness at Noon” (1940) on her nightmare experiences in Russia.

Already at the top of her profession, Zeisel was working in Moscow, when in 1936, she was falsely accused of being sent by Trotsky in a plot to assassinate Stalin.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Zeisel



Eva Striker Zeisel[2] (born Éva Amália Striker,[3] November 13, 1906 – December 30, 2011) was a Hungarian-born industrial designer 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.[4] Work from throughout her prodigious career is included in important museum collections across the world. Zeisel declared herself a "maker of useful things".[4]


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 Institute 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.[6] 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".[7] "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.

Imprisoned for 16 months, much of it in solitary confinement, she attempted suicide, wrote poetry, constructed a bra and played chess with herself.

After her surprise release (like Dostoyevsky, Zeisel thought she was to be executed), she narrowly escaped the Nazis, got married to her second husband in England, and in 1938 arrived in New York City.

Her ordeal could break an artist. But Zeisel emerged with the modus operandi: “The playful search for beauty.”