Eva Zeisel: Life and Design Stories Spanning a Century
Celebrate the remarkable life and legacy of design giant Eva Zeisel (American, b. Hungary 1906–2011) in an evening of conversation with Margaret Gould Stewart, VP of Product Design at Facebook, and Jean Richards, Eva Zeisel’s daughter.
Richards will share first-hand stories about Zeisel’s life, including:
- Her childhood in Budapest and introduction to pottery
- Her false imprisonment in Russia and harrowing escape from the Stalinist purges
- Surviving two World Wars
- Emigrating to the United States to become one of the most celebrated industrial designers of the 20th and 21st centuries
Check-in: 6:30 p.m.
Program: 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
ABOUT EVA ZEISEL
Eva Zeisel’s career was international in scope and spanned more than 75 years. Known for lyrical and shapely ceramics, she produced over 100,000 objects. She described her approach to design as “the playful search for beauty.” In 1946, she became the first American designer to create an all-white Modern dinner service, for which she was honored with a special exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, she was the first to teach ceramics as industrial design for mass production rather than as a handicraft. At the age of 98, Zeisel was honored with the 2005 National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement.
CART Captioning will be provided for this program.
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This project received funding from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative.