Eva Zeisel

December 1, 2013

It is a pleasure to find a book that combines elegant design and readability with thorough research, especially when the subject is the fascinating 105-year life of ceramic designer Eva Zeisel. Kirkham (Bard Graduate Ctr.), Pat Moore (cofounder, Eva Zeisel Forum), and graphic designer and writer Pirco Wolfframm have compiled both an account of the artist's life as well as an examination of her work. From Zeisel's birth in Budapest in 1906 until her move to the Soviet Union in 1932, she was educated and lived in Vienna, Berlin, and various small German cities. Flouting convention by plunging into the male-dominated, working-class environment of the potteries was characteristic of Zeisel's disregard for what polite society required of women at the time. Also distinctive was her disastrous decision to help the Russians build a new utopia, which ended in her arrest and the collapse of her first marriage. Immigrating to the United States just ahead of World War II with her second husband, Zeisel began a career that produced about 10,000 designs for ceramic firms in Europe, Asia, and North America. The initial chapter on her life is followed by 26 chapters illustrating and discussing particular groups of designs for ceramics, plastic, and metalware. Specific information on sizes, shapes, and hallmarks is supplied in a 49-page taxonomy. VERDICT A beautifully illustrated survey of the life and work of an important designer, useful to both collectors and readers interested in 20th-century modernism.--David McClelland, Andover, NY

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