Eva Zeisel on Design [Hardcover]

Eva Zeisel (Author), The Overlook Press (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 2004

With a trailblazing career that spans more than seventy-five years and continues to this day, with recent creations that include a Martini glass featured in Bombay Sapphire ads and vases for Klein-Reid, Eva Zeisel stands at the forefront of modern designers. Her works are a reflection of a profoundly independent vision and are featured in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

In this lavishly illustrated, full-color book, the designer for the first time communicates the ideas that have guided and inspired her. Each aspect of the design process is analyzed—variety, spontaneity, line, contour, shading, and texture, among others—to show how the best works are the result of a dialogue between creator and object, the result of which is an environment that is pleasurable, comfortable, and elegant. The language in which this dialogue is conducted, “the language of things,” is one in which Zeisel’s fluency is unparalleled, and her thoughts, read alongside the photos of her stunning creations and those that have inspired her, make this book indispensable to every enthusiast of art, ceramics, and design.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite having lived through both moderism’s advent and its ‘post’-ification, 97-year-old designer Zeisel advocates a pre-modernist concept of "magic design language" in this lavishly illustrated tribute to her inspirations, accomplishments and beliefs. The Hungarian-born Zeisel spent the early years of her career in the U.S.S.R., until she was accused of plotting to murder Stalin. After 16 months of arrest, she was inexplicably freed, and arrived in New York via Austria and England in 1938. Within 10 years, she was at the forefront of America ceramic design. Her work now resides in the collections of major museums. Throughout this volume, Zeisel compares the objects that she has designed with works from ancient and contemporary cultures. Her smooth, evocative forks, glasses, cups, irons, tea pots are juxtaposed with long-limbed cacti, the arches of a medieval cloister, the "ragged contour" of an Iranian village wall and an Etruscan "spiky pitcher." The photos unfold organically, loosely grouped around various design precepts. Alone, a tall teapot skewed on its axis "makes us feel ill-at-ease"; balanced with a second one facing it, "the teapots seem to be dancing," Zeisel writes—thus the magic. In one of the most amusing parts of the book, Zeisel shows how her students often resemble their own designs, deftly reminding us of the close link she advocates between works and the people who make them. With a film on her life recently completed, and further books on her work forthcoming, expect a Zeisel renaissance. 164 color and 85 b&w photographs.
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About the Author

Born in Budapest in l906, Eva Zeisel emigrated to the United States in 1938, after having designed glass and pottery for factories in Berlin, Hamburg, and Russia. Among her many awards and honors, she has received a senior award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was the subject of a touring exhibition sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; First Edition edition (March 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585674079
• ISBN-13: 978-1585674077
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #448,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good collection of short essays and photos from one of the most experienced designers in the world, November 8, 2005

By 

Karl Becker (Iowa, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eva Zeisel on Design (Hardcover)

Eva does not subscribe to the theory "newer is better." The artist/designer's observations "On Design," refined from years of experience in the world of art and product design, exhibit a warm attitude toward design along with a distaste for the modern movement she has seen develop since her birth in 1906.

Zeisel believes the modern movement focused too much on removing and simplifying. She discusses why the philosophy of `simplify, simplify,' and the expectation of modern designers to create a visual appearance entirely unique for each new product, has simultaneously increased novelty. "Our inherent belief in evolution has led to our appreciation of novelty. ... [Designers] often forget to tone down [a product's] over-interesting features, its novelty, because we ... want to show our skill." Creating products void of character, personality, and warmth is something Zeisel wants future designers to avoid.

Zeisel's reflection on evolution leading to appreciation of novelty is as applicable to 24 hour news channels as to the design of objects. Eva hopes the 21st century will bring beauty, harmony, loveliness, and elegance to design, qualities she believes were not aims of the 20th century's modern movement.

The book itself is well done. The 169 full-color and 75 black-and-white photos, the focus of the book, are printed cleanly and driven by a nicely flowing narration. There is no shortage of photos depicting Eva's creations, but there are even more pictures of objects that are Eva's inspirations or examples of ideas. One particularly jarring photo shows what the Chrysler Building may have looked like without the proper attention given to its structure. Other photos bring in many diverse inspirations to Zeisel, including Roman aqueducts, Japanese courtyards, 15th century toys, and modern sculpture.

Eva wants designers to take their job seriously but still carry whimsy. "The control and articulation of line and surface doesn't give a sensuous physical pleasure like molding clay, but it requires disciplined articulation" between maker and object. She entreats her fellow designers to "not overvalue the lines we first sketch when developing our ideas. Play with them to articulate what we want to say, clearly and beautifully."

Eva's "On Design" contains wonderful insight into design along with many beautiful photos. The variety of design topics will make a good, quick casual read for anyone who appreciates thoughtful art and design, especially from one of the most time-tested designers in the world.