Eva Zeisel
Eva Zeisel
Eva Striker Zeiselwas a Hungarian-born American industrial designer known for her work with ceramics, primarily from the period after she migrated to the United States. Her forms are often abstractions of the natural world and human relationships. Work from throughout her prodigious career is included in important museum collections across the world. Zeisel declared herself a "maker of useful things"...
NationalityHungarian
ProfessionDesigner
Date of Birth13 November 1906
mother children zurich
When I met my designs in the market of a remote village in the West Indies, or in the airport restaurant in Zurich, I felt like the mother of many well-behaved children.
mother cousin brother
I don't like to design single objects. I like my pieces to have a relationship to each other. They can be mother and child, like the Schmoo salt and pepper shakers, or brother and sister like the Birdie salt and peppers, or cousins, like most of my dinnerware sets.
art ego
Art has more ego to it than what I do.
beautiful people making-people-happy
Beautiful things make people happy.
world made wanted
I made the things particularly because I wanted them to see the world.
home men design
Men have no concept of how to design things for the home. Women should design the things they use.
hands woods clay
Everything I do is a direct creation of my hands, whether it is made in wood, plaster or clay.
hands bird clay
When you have clay in your hands, it's hard to avoid making birds.
differences knows
I don't know the difference between working and not working.
eye hands design
My designs are meant to attract the hand as well as the eye.
thinking design
When I design something, I think of it as a gift to somebody else.
looks finished ifs
When you begin your work, nothing exists. When it is finished it looks as if it just happened, spontaneously, effortlessly, convincingly. It looks as though it had been there all along.
makers useful-things
I am a maker of useful things.
be-kind shock grotesque
I never wanted to do something grotesque. I never wanted to shock. I wanted my audience to be happy, to be kind.