Eva Zeisel, The Shape of Life Exhibit: 'Look! Our dishes!'
The exhibition, Eva Zeisel: The Shape of Life, showcased close to 100 pieces designed by the Hungarian-born artist who revolutionized ceramic design throughout the world and brought an original brand of modernism into American homes beginning in the 1940s was held in 2001. It was held at the Tyler Museum of Art in Tyler, Texas from September 13–December 9, 2008.
The Shape of Life exhibit, organized by Erie Art Museum in Erie, Pennsylvania, spanned more than 70 years in the broad and accomplished career of Zeisel, the legendary Eastern European artisan who continued to produce household and industrial designs. Zeisel was 102 when this exibit was held.
She died on December 30th, 2011 in New York City and was 105 years old.
"Eva is perhaps best known in the design world for bringing warmth and feeling to the cold formalism of Bauhaus, and what is most remarkable about her work in general is the emotional connection," TMA Curator Kentaro Tomio said in 2008. "Her designs, no matter how modernistic or intricate, display a genuine intimacy and distinct personality. Anyone can own and use the pieces based on her designs, yet they beautifully illustrate how artistically designed, mass-produced objects can be comparable to fine art."
The exhibition guided the viewer through Zeisel's vast array of design ideas and changes of style since the late 1920s, as well as narrating her long and eventful life — which included escaping a death sentence in the Soviet Union after being falsely accused in a plot to assassinate Josef Stalin. (That experience later was recounted in the novel Darkness at Noon by her friend Arthur Koestler.)
The Shape of Life includes Eva Zeisel's well known ceramic work for Hallcraft, Sears and Red Wing Pottery, as well as glass, metal and furniture design, and examples of her famed Town and Country series of modern stoneware. The exhibition also showcased her work for companies such as KleinReid, The Orange Chicken, and Crate and Barrel, the latter of which in 2005 introduced "Classic Century," a reissue of her 1952 china collections. (Editor's note: Crate and Barrel continues to carry Zeisels' work today.)
"Zeisel's mid-20th century ceramic designs were considered avant-garde at the time but are now recognized as classic," Pearson said. "Her timelessly elegant dinnerware from that era looks at home in today's kitchen, especially with the current revival of modernist design. It's amazing how many of her designs – and wares inspired by her designs — are in use today all over the world."
Born to a wealthy Hungarian family in 1906, Zeisel's artistic influence spanned the globe for eight decades. She served as artistic director of the China and Glass Industry in the Soviet Union until her untimely arrest for the Stalin plot, and is credited with teaching the first course in the US on ceramic design for mass production when she accepted a post at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute shortly after emigrating to this country to flee Nazi persecution in 1938. Her work was the focus of the first one-woman show at New York's Museum of Modern Art, after the venue commissioned her Castleton Service porcelain dinnerware in 1947.
In addition to having her work exhibited in major museums throughout the world, Zeisel's designs appear in permanent collections including the MoMA, Metropolitan Museum, British Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Brohan Museum in Berlin, continuing to attract widespread acclaim for their uniquely utilitarian beauty. As she entered her second century, she remained "a maker of useful things."
"We feel differently, more intimately, about dishes than we do about shoes or chairs or forks," Zeisel said upon the unveiling of the exhibition at the Erie Art Museum. "If we unexpectedly come upon a chair like we used when we were children, we say, 'We had a chair like that at home.' But if we come upon dishes like we used on the dinner table with our parents, we will surely exclaim, 'Look! Our dishes!'"
Eva Zeisel on the playful search for Beauty at the TED conference:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eva_zeisel_on_the_playful_search_for_beauty.html
Photographs:
1. Design by Eva Zeisel for Riverside China Company, Riverside, Calif. Glazed earthenware. Erie Art Museum, Erie, Pa.
2. Design by Eva Zeisel (Hungarian, 1906 - 2011) for Western Stoneware. Bird salt and pepper shakers (black and white), c. 1950s. Erie Art Museum, Erie, Pennsylvania.
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