New issue

Issues of 2008

EvA Zeisel. Along with the century

This year the world-famous ceramist Eva Zeisel celebrates her 100 birthday. There is a photograph of Eva of the 1930s at the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory ≈ proud profile, short haircut, speaking of strong energetic character. An astonishingly pleasant lady of advanced age ≈ on the recent photographs. In between these two shots there is the who-le epoch and a bright life filled with creativeness.

Eva Zeisel [zoom (25k)]

Eva Zeisel (Schtricker) was born in Budapest on November, 11 1906. Her father, Alexander Schtricker, was the owner of textile factory, mother, Laura Polanij, the teacher of history in Budapest University. At the age of 18 Eva entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In 1925 young artist took part in the famous International Fair of Decorative and Industrial Art in Paris. It is during these years that the concept of design was clearly developed, and more and more attention was given to quality of products of industry; many artists addressed the industrial production. Eva founded her own pottery workshop in Budapest and as well worked as a free-lance collaborator for the Kispester Factory in Budapest. Tea sets, created for the factory in those years, bore the influence of Hungarian National ceramics and the fashionable in those days ceramics of Vienna workshops.

The work at the Schramberg majolica factory in Germany in 1928√1930s years became the new stage in the creative life of young master.

Eva studied to pre-model the future work of paper there. She was under the influence of Bauhaus. But in spite of the strictness and clearness of the line, this is always a very witty and exquisite play with plain geometric volumes. Vases, jugs with cut sides, rectangular tea-pots, ink-pots shaped as architectural edifices, created by Eva Schtricker, reminded of the works of supremacists on the State Porcelain Factory in Petrograd in the 1920s. But if famous semi-cup and spermatic tea-pot of Malevich , ink-pot of Suetin were far from their practical usage and were more like a kind of non-figurative compositions in porcelain, demonstrating the ideas of suprematism, the most audacious works of Eva were oriented on people▓s demands. According to the conviction of the master, "art is to charm first of all and not to stimulate intellectual conclusions".

Eva Zeisel at work [zoom (40k)]

In 1930 Eva moved to Berlin, where she took up painting, worked over tea-coffee set for Christian Karstens. In the interview to the correspondent of "Segodnja" newspaper Ekaterina Clado, Eva remembered Berlin before Hitler came to power: "It was so interesting to live there! Of course, I knew all the negative sides: depression, rations, ersatz-coffee and clashes of political parties right in the streets. But along with it there was wonderful cultural life┘ My brother and I had a huge studio where we often organized parties. The most interesting people of that time where our guests: scientists, writers. For instance, Anna Seghers, who was my cousin. Arthur Kestler was my beloved. At that time I got acquainted with emigrants from Russia and this country fascinated me. I had a love affair with Alex Weisberg, physicist who worked in Kharkov and in 1932 I became engaged with him, left "Karstens" and went to the Soviet Russia for two weeks for holidays". Thus Eva Schtrecker found herself in Russia.

In the Soviet Union they quickly appreciated the talent of young Hungarian designer and the experience of work in ceramics industry. Having arrived to Kharkov, Eva was got into the Ukrainian Department of Management in porcelain and glass industry and unexpectedly for herself, stayed in order to work there: "My life then was full of contrarieties. From a luxurious Leningrad hotel ⌠Astoria■ I returned to Ukraine, where I had to sleep in cold hut. I saw hunger, poverty, Komsomol workers who burned the houses of those who tried to avoid the dispossession. I lived the same life as Soviet people did".

Set Century. 1956. Hallcraft company [zoom (19k)]

In the 1930s the work over the standardization of produced ware was carried out in the Soviet Russia in Porcelain Industry, the new assortment of porcelain of mass production was worked out. The designers, basing on the methods of functionalism, as a kind of juxtaposition to the styles of luxury, strived to simplify the shapes to the utmost degree, refused to have unnecessary details, introduced the new "economy" style in the industry. In connection with it the experience of Western Europe, the USA, the achievements of Bauhaus were actively studied. At the same time the open persecution of the left art was held in mass media. The artists had to stop their formal searches. But audacious experiments of the 1920s didn▓t remain without results. In 1931 the artistic-industrial laboratory was created that was to work out the samples of new objects on Lomonosov Porcelain Factory under the guidance of Nikolay Suetin. The talented director Nikolay Suetin was led by the ideas taken from suprematism. He achieved the clear laconic sound of shape in porcelain. In 1932 Eva Sctrecker was invited to the factory as a foreign specialist for the participation in the work over the standardization of porcelain ware. Thus by chance the representatives of different schools of European avant-guard met each other and had fruitful collaboration. Suetin evaluated the sense of composition and unfailing eye of Eva. Under his guidance she worked out the first shape of the set "Intourist" (1934) for mass production. Eva found a successful compromise in between the common roundness of the shape of the ware and the functional reasoning of each detail.

Rational, handy for mass production shape in the basis of which there is a cylinder is meanwhile organic and elegant. The shape of the set "Intourist" was appreciated by the artists of Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. In the 1930s it was painted by L. Protopopova (sets "The first metro in the USSR", "The campaign of Tcheluskin", "From tajga till the construction"), Ivan Riznich ("Hunter▓s trap "), A Vorobjovsky ("Blue flowers", "Winter games"). Voluminous rounded shapes of the set, wide handles, unusually flat smooth tops of the tea-pots and cream-jugs gave a great variety of opportunities for painting.

Set From tajga to the construction, Intourist shape. Painting by L. Protopopova. 1933 [zoom (45k)]

In 1934 Eva moved to Moscow. Her career in Russia was surprisingly successful. Soviet newspapers of the 1930s wrote of her as an artist of "great and subtle gift" and a necessary specialist in industry. At the age of 29 Eva became the artistic director of all the porcelain-glass industry in Russia. She organized model workshop on Dulevsky factory where during the year created the shapes of four tea and four coffee sets, the shape for the set for water, made projects for ware for kindergartens and restaurants. Creating the design of ware for the Soviet industry, Eva took into consideration the traditions of Russian National ceramics. Rounded, rich shapes of the sets with exquisite smooth line of handles (sets "Mocha", "Blue net") were appreciated by Soviet buyers and were for a long time produced by the factory. Eva remembered that time with gratitude: "I visited a lot of factories, made the industrial project. It was still very interesting to work in the USSR. I had a wonderful circle of acquaintances: scientists ≈ physicists Landau, Yoffe, Konstantin Leonov┘". And suddenly unexpectedly (and quite predictably on the other hand) she was arrested. "┘ I will never forget a wonderful morning of 1935. My mother came up to my bed and said: ⌠My dear, there is an agent of the United State Political Board■". Eva was sent to Lubjanka first and then to Leningrad "Kresty". She was accused of preparing an attempt to kill Stalin. She spent a year and a half in a solitary cell.

But fate was kind to this fantastic woman. In 1937 she was given a new passport and sent out from country. Through Poland she came to Austria and escaping Nazis went to Great Britain. In 1938 she arrived to the USA along with her second husband a law student Hans Zeisel. America became the second homeland for her.

Set Village and city. Red Wing China company, Minnesota. 1946 [zoom (28k)]

Today Eva Zeisel is a famous American ceramist, but than, in the 1940s, she had to start Evarything from the very beginning: "┘ We had only 64 dollars. I had to work as a charwoman first. But very soon I found a magazine devoted to glass and porcelain in the public library and made friends with its editor and made a couple of beautiful lamp-shades. And as soon as in November I finally got the opportunity to take up ceramics in New-Jersey. In four years I was a lecturer in Metropolitan and my works were exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art". American period in the creative life of Eva turned out to be no less interesting and fruitful. The style of her works greatly changed. "I left apart my interest for modernist style and my works became much more sensual, womanly and were submitted to the lines of nature. It is likely that family life and maternity changed me". Eva brought up two children, taught in Brooklyn School of Industrial Design ≈ Pratt Institute. In 1947 she organized her own workshop in New-York.

In those years America worked out its own variant of industrial design that got the title of "streamline style". A powerful design of ships and locomotives fascinated artists. To some degree this style could be traced in the works of Eva Zeisel. Thus, the set "Stratoware" got the title in honour of the new airship. The faience ware set "Village and city" created for the firm Red Wing China in Minnesota (1946) is marked by unusual approach and subtle humour. Streamline complicated lines with an off-centered symmetry axes, sauce-boats, salt-cellars, painted in different colours create the atmosphere of comfort and warmth. But her famous set "Museum" of 1946 that was created in close collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art in New-York at the factory Castleton China, Pennsylvania was a real triumph. The harmony of smooth "singing" lines, the elegance of shapes are perfect in this set.

During the next years Eva worked very actively. Her ceramics became popular throughout the world. She collaborated with American companies Hallcraft, Western Stoneware, German company of Philipp Rosental, Italian Company of Luciano Mancioli, Japanese company Noritake, and after a number of years started to work with Kispester Factory in Hungary anew.

Tea-pot, sugar bowl, cream-jug. Schramberg majolica factory, Germany. 1920s [zoom (43k)]

The variety and the quantity of the shapes created by her impress. Eva always wonderfully felt the time. The ware created by her embodied the spirit of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1980s. Among her recent works ≈ the projects for Zsolnay factory and for American companies KleinReid, Nambe and Orange Chicken. Today the works by a famous ceramist are exhibited in the museums of modern art in the USA, Germany, Hungary, Great Britain and Russia. In 1988 Eva got the title of the Doctor of the Royal College of Arts in London, where she gave lectures on design. In 1991 Parsons School of Design awarded her with an honourable title of Doctor of Fine Arts. In 2004 Eva got the Middle Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary that is equal to the title of knight. In November 2004 Zeisel was granted the title of an Honourable Member of the Royal Society of Designers of Great Britain.