Eva zeisel

She later moved to Berlin and to other factories in Hamburg and throughout Europe. In 1932 she went to Russia on vacation in order to experience the new artistic and social movements there, as did many other idealistic young artists and intellectuals. As an experienced industrial designer she was soon offered a position assisting in the modernization of the ceramic industry, where her creativity and dynamism stood her well. She traveled to many parts of Russia in order to understand and coordinate efforts to create a central manufactory which would make products for the homes of the everyday citizenry. Her efforts were recognized, and she was soon transferred to the Lomonosov factory in Leningrad (the former Imperial Porcelain Factory). This in turn led to her appointment as Artistic Director for the Porcelain and Glass Industries for the entire country.

In 1936, however, she was caught up in one of the Stalinist purges, accused of plotting against the life of Stalin. She was imprisoned in the NKVD prison for 16 months, most of the time in solitary confinement. She was subjected to early forms of brainwashing, torture, and the constant possibility that each day would be her last. (Arthur Koestler, a lifelong friend, based his book Darkness at Noon on her prison experiences.)

Then one day she was unexpectedly led out of her cell to what she feared was to be her execution but was instead put on a train to Austria in the clothes she was standing in. Just as the reason for her imprisonment was never really known, so is the reason for her release. (More details of Zeisel's Russian experience at our Membership Benefits page.)

Once in Austria, she left on the last train out at the time of the Anschluss and went to England, where she married Hans Zeisel. who had waited seven years for her. In 1938 they went to New York where they settled permanently.

In 1939 she created the department of ceramic arts industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she taught until 1952.

One of her first designs in the U.S. was for Sears, Roebuck. She has since designed for Hall China, Red Wing China, Castleton China, Norleans Meito (Japan), Western Stoneware, Hyalyn, Phillip Rosenthal (Germany), Mancioli (Italy), Federal Glass, Heisey Glass, Noritake (Japan), Nikkon Toki (Japan), and almost too many others to mention.

Eva Zeisel received many honors for her outstanding achievements, beginning with her selection in 1942 by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to design a line of fine porcelain dinnerware for the Castleton China Company of Pennsylvania. The designs were not completed and produced until 1945, due to wartime restriction, but were presented at a one-woman show at MoMA in 1947.

• 1982 she received a senior award from the National Endowments for the Arts and was the subject of a touring exhibition sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Musé,e des Arts Dé,coratifs de Montré,al, in 1984.
• 1988 - Zeisel was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Arts, London
• 1991 - awarded an honorary doctorate by the Parson New School, New York
• 1998 - received the Binns Medal from the New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University NY, for Excellence in Ceramic Art.
• 2000 - received the Industrial Design Society of America Bronze Apple Award.
• 2001 - made an Honorary Member of the American Ceramics Society.
• 2001 - a street in Schramberg. Germany designated EvaZeiselStrasse.
• 2002 - given the Living Legend Award at Pratt Institute, New York.
• 2002 - received the Russell Wright Award for Design Excellence
• 2004 - Awarded the Middle Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary
• 2004 - awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Craft and Design, Budapest, Republic of Hungary
• 2004 - named an Honorary Royal Designer by the Royal Designers for Industry, London, a part of the Royal Society of Arts (the highest award given to a non-British subject)
• 2005 - given an honorary doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design
• 2005 - received the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement, followed by
• 2006 - luncheon at the White House with Laura Bush
• 2006 - received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Bon Appetit Magazine

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