Eva Zeisel: A legacy in organic modern design
Steve Jobs' name can be found on most end-of-year notable death lists having to do with product design, but the industrial design world lost another very influential figure just as 2011 slipped into 2012. Eva Zeisel died on Friday in New York City, reports the Los Angeles Times. The prolific designer, known for her ceramic tableware, lived to 105.
The first to have a one-woman show at MOMA, back in 1946, Zeisel continued to work and design throughout her long life -- more recently through the aid of her design assistant Olivia Barry. Retailers including Crate & Barrel and Design Within Reach continue to sell her designed products. Her work ranged in styles from Bauhaus to whimsical, colorful pieces. But her best-loved work evoked a modern organic aesthetic, with curves and fullness punctuating most pieces.
Zeisel's squat, anthropomorphic salt and pepper shakers were perhaps her signature product.
Born in Hungary, she started out as a painter before training in ceramics and then immigrating to the U.S. in 1938. The Times notes that as a young woman, Zeisel was put in prison in the Soviet Union for 16 months (on "trumped-up" charges that she was plotting to kill Josef Stalin) and was later forced to flee Nazi-occupied Austria.
Despite her difficult early life and the fact that she never became a household name outside design circles (even though her products graced many households), she maintained a cheery disposition, as seen in this short video made to celebrate her 102nd birthday.
Eva Zeisel: Distinguished By Design from Jeremy Bales on Vimeo.
Photos: Crate & Barrel; Flickr/patrickd
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com