EVA ZEISEL (1906 - 2011)

Eva Striker Zeisel was a Hungarian-born industrial designer whose career in ceramics began as a student at the Hungarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Upon completion of her studies, Eva became the first female member of the local pottery guild.

In 1936, during her career at the Russian Glass and Porcelain Trust, Eva was falsely accused of plotting to assassinate Joseph Stalin. She spent 16 months in a Soviet prison before being released in 1937 and relocating to Vienna. Eva and her husband, Hans Zeisel, managed to take the last train out of Austria before Hitler and his troops marched on the city. With $64 between them, they sailed to New York City to start their new lives where Eva was hired as the first industrial ceramist instructor at the Pratt Institute in New York. She raised two children with her husband Hans: a daughter, Jean Richards, who was born in 1940 and a son, John Zeisel, who was born in 1944.

In 1942, Zeisel received a commission from the Museum of Modern Art and Castleton China which resulted in the first one-woman exhibition at MoMA "New Shapes in Modern China Designed by Eva Zeisel". The exhibition ran from April 17 to June 9, 1946, and was widely praised.

Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. In 2002 Pratt Institute honored Eva with the Living Legend Award, and in 2005 she received the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Her designs are widely collected and many are on the market today.