 Good evening. Welcome everyone. This is such a great turnout For a surge of you know now it's we're shifting to daylight savings time We're all getting used to being dark right now, but this is a really site for sore eyes My name is Yavin Yu. I am senior curator and head of product design and decorative arts And I want to welcome you to the third of our five American History Initiative programs at Cooper Hewitt, which is made possible by the Smithsonian wide American Women's History Initiative, which is as actually launched last year last November The initiatives drives to be the nation's most comprehensive undertaking to document research collect Display and share the rich complete and compelling story of women in America So it's only fitting that tonight we are celebrating Ava Zeissel One of the 20th century's most influential industrial designers Ava was born in Budapest in 1906 and she was the second child of Laura Polanyi and Alexander Strikker her career she died in New York in 2011 so at the age of 105 So her career spanned 85 years, which is remark I mean Remarkable, I mean that she practically lived throughout the full 20th century and into the 21st and she continued making until her very last days and Within those 85 years. She is known to have designed over 100,000 pieces of tableware We have over 230 pieces here at the Cooper Hewitt including process material and I the ones the images outlined in red are the ones that we have in the collection The ones that are not are ones that we would like to add to our collection So should you have any of those pieces sitting in your cupboards that you would be willing to part with come talk to me afterwards So, but I mean this is extraordinary diversity of Form of styles which also underscores her Not nomadic lifestyle, but you know, she was born in Budapest. She also spent time in Vienna And before moving back to Budapest and then taking jobs in Schrenberg, Germany Also living in Berlin also spending time in USSR Soviet Union also having spent moment of incarceration and then before moving to the United States in 1938 So I think that there definitely is a relationship between these sort of lived life experiences and the the range of works, but of course unified by this loving attention to detail and Sort of and just forms that are just so magical and lyrical Here I'm showing you pictures of the exhibition from 1946 Which was for her a breakout moment So I'm showing you the exhibition called new shapes in modern China designed by Eva Zeissel so again She is such a perfect person to be celebrating tonight because she was the first woman designer to be given a solo exhibition at MoMA. I know who does that and And she was the first potter to be celebrated. So you know and in some ways that that pioneering spirit carries on the legacy of her family And it's also carried on by her daughter Jean Richards who you'll be meeting tonight So her mother Laura was the first woman in Budapest to be awarded doctorate in history also her grandmother was was also a you know a very Spirited woman. So there is just something so appropriate about celebrating her tonight. So and here we're seeing prototypes of the museum service That was a collaboration with Castleton that was marketed. It was these are the prototypes They were designed starting in 1942 and it was the first modern China dinnerware to be produced in the United States And again Thinking about that I refer the diversity of forms of styles We do want to think about what she What? Sort of how she was absorbing the world around her. So as I mentioned she grew up in Budapest. So you know She was very much Influenced by a lot of the Baroque architecture in Budapest and for those of you who have not been I highly recommend it Not only do you get the most amazing strudel in the whole entire world But it's also just The architecture and just it's it's an amazing subway. Let's just talk about that. I mean you never had to wait more than four minutes so But Vienna was also very important for her. So she was She and you know, she was there they moved there. I believe in 1918 or was 1912 it was let's see I Think it was 1912 and This was right when all these Meener Becks data was in full was in full swing So that they arrived there just after the Alfred Lowe's house had been constructed Which is that building on the upper right and there was a lot of controversy around the strict lines She was she just really adored Otto Wagner's succession building. She called it like a castle in a fairy tale As for Hoffman, she you know sort of just she was it's uncle, you know, she had a very It's a more of a different kind of relationship and she referred to his Textiles and his objects as having is being very characterized by very aggressive geometric ornaments So and in many ways, I think it's a little shocking to learn that She Start off as a painter Okay, so she was trained as a painter and I show you on the Left a painting that she made of her brother Otto in 1924 and on the right I'm showing you a service that you probably would never associate with Eva Zaisal This is a service that was made by the Lomonossof Manufactory during her time in the Soviet Union and if you take away if you take away the painted surface and reduce and you take away the kind of the gilding the the sort of the Kind of painting that you probably would not associate with Eva when you look at the forum So if you look at those handles that the handles of that teapot and the coffee pot you recognize Eva right there so in fact what was very interesting was that she liked to call herself a Modernist with a small M not a large M and She was actually very She was not very sympathetic at all to the Bauhaus movement the Bauhaus school she Admired daughter bookbund, but she definitely was not a fan of the Bauhaus. She felt that they were a bit too dogmatic and she didn't she felt their principles were just too too dogmatic and The irony is that this is also the Centenary of the founding in the Bauhaus school so that on November 16th, which is next week We are opening a show on the second vlog floor called Herbert Bayer Bauhaus master But I thought it would be nice to bring in the fact that these are all contemporary some certain point and That was not her thing But and of course we all Sort of you know the iconic Zaisal Products probably are Is the set of salt and pepper shakers which you know you're taking something so practical So sort of utilitarian and yet she endows it with a certain kind of magic and we were talking earlier in the object viewing about that anthropomorphic quality and I wanted to bring in this quote because I think it's really lovely. So here Ava's there with her daughter Jean and her son John and She says this was these were created in 1947 for Red Wing She says my small Red Wing salt and pepper shows that way the way I felt about my daughter at the time I designed them So that that at that age Jean was seven I correct me if I'm wrong Jean But I think there is you know it you it would you would be so hard I mean the way that she's taking the perforations and making them into faces so and A lot of scholars have tried to explain The magic of Eva right that's life life force, you know, how is it possible? How does she become so influential? So on the one hand I would want to say As many scholars have it's because she's a Scorpio also my sign Right and in fact we are one week short of her birthday her birthday. She was born November 13th And so next week would be her 113th birthday So of course we want to say that she's Scorpio and people have talked about this I will explain her passion her zeal and here I show you this wonderful costume She's wearing during her time in Berlin, you know working with some of these data plays, you know, and is that it? I mean that's one that's one possible very plausible explanation But I think it has to do with something else and so I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna come make a confession here I'm not trained as a design historian. I'm treated as art historian and before I started getting deep into reading this biography there was one image that really stood out for me and it was this image of her from 2005 during the National Design Awards, which is which are which we administer and which we were for which we organize and When I saw this picture of her with the hands I was like that's it and These hands say so much and I think this picture and this was when she was receiving the lifetime achievement award and They and you know and you see that through and I just these hands because these are Potter's hands These are someone who touches things and who really believes in the tactility who believes in how things feel Because I don't know about you, but that's how I buy how I buy Glasses or bowls I have to feel them and hold them and see how they fit in my hand and this was someone and she was someone who was very committed to Actually making prototypes or first working from paper and then having having the three-dimensional models and This is very important to bring out, you know, I've been working been making a lot of visits to people who do a lot of 3d printing and It when I asked them like how they get to how they got into 3d printing and ceramics, you know I said did you start a ceramics and they're like, oh, no I started like printing plastics or I was a graphic designer and I was like what like do you not have any interest in the clay because I Can't turn for to save my life and I love gardening, but clay the wetness is a little hard for me but it was a big deal that in the Late 20s she learned to pot. She learned how to throw and as she tells you Ladies didn't pot when I started my mother let me do it anyway And remember her mother was the one who received a doctorate in history Also started a kindergarten let the kids run around new, you know naked playing was a big deal so a very open-minded person and The big deal coming that they were from very upper-class family And I just have to couldn't resist showing a picture of her with Martha Stewart the epitome of lady And so and you can see that you see that that kind of sense of tactility of ergonomics imbues everything that she does So here I'm showing you prototypes. We have on the right of handles iron handles that she did for for commissioned by from General Mills and for an unrealized project and then You know towards the end of her life when she was no longer able to make things the way she wanted to She worked with Olivia Berry who happens to be in the room with us today We're so lucky to have her here and who worked with her to create prototypes It's the for one of her last commissions in 2012 from creating barrel of a silverware that was manufactured by Yamazaki. So and here you see that And this and these are all in Cooper Hewitt's collection where you know It's part of what we strive to have we try to tell the whole story of process So we have the a very lucky to have the balsa wood prototypes from which She and Libya worked to shape them to be the right to you know to have the right feel and so including also the paper cut out so on that note, I'm going to end my ramblings here today and Introduce you to two of our speakers for tonight I'm thrilled to welcome to the stage Margaret Gold Stewart who with the vice president of product design at Facebook and This role she leads a global team of product designers and researchers for teams such as artificial intelligence privacy and data use She also oversees Facebook responsible innovation and design core team Which is focused on integrating ethical foresight into the company's overall product development process Moreover Margaret is a valued board member at Cooper Hewitt and perhaps most importantly Margaret is one of Ava Zeisel's biggest fans So I think that's all you need to know for tonight, right right Margaret And so please join us here on the stage and then joining her conversation is Jean Richards He saw a picture of her at the how old were you Jean seven? Seven right She is she sort of likes to say she's just you know Ava's daughter. She's keeper of her legacy but Jean is also a very talented actress and She more than anything. She just is such a warm and generous person and I unfortunately have never had I did not have the Never was not fortunate to have met Ava, but I can really see how her spirit lives on in Jean so And so please welcome them to the stage Hello everyone Yes, I am a major Eva Zeisel fan girl for many years Thanks so much for having me and I'm very excited to have this conversation. I wanted to start By just explaining like why me? I mean there's a lot of fans of Eva Zeisel, right? Well, there's there's a few things that I guess Made it make sense for the museum staff for me to maybe be the person to have this conversation first of all At work I have a conference room that I use that I do all my meetings in and it has always been named Eva Zeisel and And And I did this because when I actually first moved into the room was called howl 9,000 and I was like absolutely not That is an like a like an apocalyptic thing to call a conference room at a technology company And so as I'm going to change this Mostly so that people would constantly ask me who is Eva Zeisel and I would get to tell the story But the story goes back a little bit further. I Got married 20 almost 24 years ago and at my 10th wedding anniversary I realized how much I hated all the China that my family had gotten me to register for and so I sold it all on ebay and I took the money and I was looking for Dishes that I could use really for anything but that I really thought were beautiful and this was when Creighton barrel was reissuing Sentry dinnerware and I found it in a magazine and I thought these are the most beautiful dishes I've ever seen I actually didn't know a lot about Eva, but I became somewhat obsessed with her and Used to bore people to death talking about these plates and I I actually then when I was leading design at YouTube I used the plates actually as the object of inspiration for the first major redesign of YouTube I used the plates again when I interviewed for my job at Facebook to tell that story and Physically brought the plates in with me to do the presentation So it is not exaggeration to say that Eva has been a critical part of my career Even though I never had the chance to meet her But I've gotten to know Jean and her family because I wrote this very long blog post About her and how obsessed I was with her and her teachings and how much we all have to learn from her and no one Read my blog And so I was very surprised when I started getting notices that there were comments on my blog So I go and I look and the first comment was thank you for saying so many nice things about my grandmother And I was like your grandmother and then Jean comments. This is Jean I'm Eva's daughter and this is such a nice thing that you've done And I thought these are literally the highest signal internet comments in the history of the internet so that is how Jean and I met and I've loved getting to know all about you and your family and your amazing mother and your amazing mother ever since so That was my indulgent five minutes and explaining my connection to all of this I Would love to spend a little bit of time And we touched on it a little bit in the introduction just talking about Eva's family and You know kind of growing up and and and what the family was like and how that influenced her I don't know how it influenced her, but her family was very intellectual I saw a letter where someone said that the dining dinner conversation was about Immanuel Kant and And Her Well, they were very intellectual and she said I saw recently of an interview. She said I was definitely not Intellectual she was not it wasn't a rebellion. She just wasn't and her mother who was a big influence on her was not only a historian but She Was a women's liber and she gave lectures in 1904 about women's rights and and That women should have the equal pay for equal work and all kinds of things and she was also interested in education and made this little kindergarten and There's a nice story about the kindergarten one of the kids in this kindergarten This experimental kindergarten was Arthur Kustler the writer and when he described it later He said, you know, we all changed together They didn't run around naked. They changed into their gym clothes together and he said I knew there was something I was supposed to be embarrassed about but I thought it was my behind and If a very really began and and her father was a well-off business man who owned a textile factory a handsome businessman and Eva really from her early youth was a painter and and drew in fact She said that when they graduated from the kindergarten age four and five They asked each child what they were going to do for the summer and Eva said I'm going to make Paintings or drawings and Kustler said I'm going to make stories It's amazing Anyway, she painted and drew from early. We have things. She's done at age 10 12 14 And she was an obsessive and very gifted painter and then her mother and she decided that it really To be a painter was a very lonely life and also you would be starving in the Garrett So she should really learn Some kind of a way to support herself some sort of craft Yeah, it's kind of amazing that she was thinking about financial independence that they both were it's a very progressive attitude for the time It's you know not you know find a husband to take care of you financially, but make sure that you can support yourself That's that's amazing. And so then you know she gets into ceramics and she She apprentices herself right she apprenticed herself to the last master potter in the Hungarian guild system and she became an apprentice and she had to mush the clay with her feet and Make sure that the kiln was going all night and then she took the things to market and of course she learned how to Pot and she graduated from there. She was yeah, she graduated from there as the first woman journeyman For which there was an examination And the master potter suggested that that she bring They had some big property where they had some vineyards that she bring a demi-john of wine for the judges Never heard And she graduated as a journeyman And decided after that she wanted to see the world So she traveled she then she went to Berlin next no no she got a job She wanted to go as far as possible from home not because she didn't like home but as an adventure and she put an ad in journeyman looking for work as Whatever educated journeyman and she got several answers and decided on a place in Hamburg, which was a small Shop a ceramic shop right next to the red light district. So it was quite an adventure When she arrived at that At her wheel there were four wheels and three gruff men and an empty wheel for her and on the wheel As she liked to say so delicately was a perfectly formed male organ And she She just rushed it aside and from then on she was okay. She was considered okay And where does she had after Hamburg well she were it turned out as she says that she was not a very good potter That means a potter has to do everything exactly the same size and hers were some bigger and some smaller But before they could throw her out They found that she could make a wonderful variety of things and they kept run as a designer and Then she went back to Budapest and did some set designs for a da daist Cabaret and then she took the job there was an ad and she took the job in Schrumberg Where she really designed for a large factory keeping many people busy and there she designed You don't have the picture in a kind of playful Geometric style she had just learned how to draft on the way up there She that was her style there and she worked there then she moved to Berlin Which was in Schrumberg? It was a very small town and she was very isolated and then Berlin was She worked somewhere else in Berlin. Her mother had rented a studio for her and her brother, which had been Emile Nolder's studio and She lived a very elegant life Parties and parties with a hundred people and all the intellectuals and scientists and artists came and It was the opposite of the small town in Schrumberg And then yeah, then did she is that when she kind of Wanted to explore what was going on behind the mountain Exactly, and she said that everything in in Weimar Berlin was so decrepit and Terrible and dark and everything that came from the Soviet Union was beautiful the children's books and the music and the dance and she Decided to just go on a vacation to see what was on the other side of the mountain in the Soviet Union Which she did and but it was hard I'm understanding it was hard to get a tourist visa But she so it's easier to either come in maybe as a fiancee or with a permit she had a very close friend and I think he loved her I'm not sure she loved him and She went in as his fiance and got Got the visa I guess to go in and then and then she I think she had a few different jobs Well, she was there, but she ended up she was only planning to vacation there I mean just to look around and then she got very interesting jobs first of all inspecting Factories far on the edges in small towns and that was a lot of adventures and then designing for the Lomonosso factory and and setting up an art department for the doula factory, which is one of the biggest in the world apparently and Then she was finally artistic director of the Russian China and Glass Trust and then Yeah, and then they busted into her apartment in the middle of the night and arrested her They arrested her and she had no idea why what was going on and thought it must be a mistake and she'd be out in a few days But it ended up being about 16 months, right? Yeah Yeah, it's a it's an incredible story, which I have been reading because there is an amazing memoir that gene helped Record and I have to say it is just It is it is like a screenplay waiting to happen the story you cannot make up whole parts of it. It is it is kind of extraordinary both as a Understanding a moment in time in terms of what was going on and so the union with these purges and You know the way that you know people would get arrested and and people wouldn't know where they were and you know They didn't have lawyers and you know all these things that we you know tend to take for granted But that experience, you know and the recordings that you did are really quite extraordinary especially for somebody who Was so much about engaging with life and and making and and experiencing color and shape to be in Mostly in solitary confinement Yeah, it's it's kind of harrowing to think about as I was reading through it There was one quote in particular that I think was really poignant in terms of you know, how do you even keep yourself sane? When you're kept alone like that it is its own kind of she wasn't physically tortured, but there's certainly an emotional Torture associated with being left alone and also interrogated in that worst way. Yeah This this little quote. I want to read is she said what were my feelings first of all You're in a cage you were suddenly in a cage in a dark gray green cage without any books without anything to do With very very many hours very many minutes very many seconds of gruesome dumb depression You cannot survive if you say this is a mistake. I must be released. You cannot you cannot You can only survive by saying I have closed my life I have had a wonderful time, but I have nowhere to go from here. You have to I was 29 and a half Yeah, she turned 30 in prison but she did all kinds of things to Muse herself she for exercise she stood on her head and did exercise with her legs And she played she she kept a little piece of bread from the awful bread They gave her and played tic-tac-toe with herself. I Forgot who won but and I was reading that she she figured out how to make ink by melting sugar Yes I mean just you know using tiny pieces of wood to make pens and that's how she wrote poetry and I mean You read through this first of all it's just like feeling unbelievably Entitled and lazy as I was reading through all of it because the resilience of her spirit is so incredible Yeah, there's also an incredible sense of humor In her recollections recollections, which I just found amazing There are a lot of funny things this book by the way is also an i-book Yeah, which you can it's called Eva Zeisel a Soviet prison memoir and you can print out This version has no pictures the version for Mac has lots of pictures and audio and video and all kinds of nice things Well, I want to read this quote, but I need to apologize in advance because there's some profanity in it But it is very related and necessary for the story And I want to read it because I really do think it shows her sense of humor shining through and she's talking about how Luckily, this was a time when They weren't physically like I said torturing the prisoners, but they certainly Verbally abused many of them and they they tended not to do that with Eva for I think a whole host of reasons, but she would hear them yelling at the other prisoners and This story really cracked me up. You said unfortunately, I do not remember much of the first interrogation All of the other people they were shouted at and the shout sounded like whips I feel really bad saying this out loud Fuck your mother for hours. I do not know why they said it I suppose they thought it would induce people to tell the truth, but they did not say it to me He could not tell me to fuck my mother. I mean he could not tell me for technical reasons And when I read that I just thought Just so amazing not only in her work Which has always retained this kind of optimism and joy and thirst for fun That I think there are many people for whom this experience would have actually crushed that and I think it's quite remarkable to see how much she She kept her sense of humor and it probably kept her sane. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, so you know the Misadventures or challenges did not end there and once she got released She she was reunited with family and and Hans I sold in Vienna And then Hitler marches in and the day Hitler marched in she took the last train out She said I cannot take another trauma. That's it and Ended up in England Where my father joined her and they married and And then they leave sales for America with $64 between them. I think it's poignant to hear this story of this amazingly talented immigrant With no money and maybe not even a ton of connections coming to the United States and how lucky we were To have her come here and and all of the amazing work that she was able to do Which seems like an important story to remind ourselves of every day And she said that when that she came in and saw the Empire State that the Statue of Liberty Tears came to her eyes. It was a very welcoming thing Well, you know, I think it's interesting. Did she identify as an immigrant or you know a Hungarian or I mean She lived in so many different places. How did you in the beginning? I assumed she identified as an immigrant But then she totally identified with being American Although when she went back to Hungary to get an award and they played the Hungarian national anthem She was pretty moved but she was American and and Through and through she felt yeah, so when she got here She didn't have money. She didn't really have connections But you know when we were chatting about this like wow, this one was an incredible natural networker like she She just got out there and she did not wait for opportunities to come to her She went out and found the first thing she did she said the next day is go to see the editor of the China and Glass Magazine and say I'm an excellent designer. I've arrived here. Do you have any ideas for me? And she did get a few small Commissions eventually through that and one of the commissions was making the Himalayas in plaster For a backdrop for a movie. I never told you that and that was done in the plaster shop at Pratt Institute And then the connection was made so she started teaching at Pratt She started teaching at Pratt. She invented the course ceramics for industry as opposed to ceramics for handicraft and Taught there for 15 years and this is a photograph of her from Pratt, right? Yeah, these she took her students actually to a factory so that they could see their designs Seen through to the end and these are her students designs in the factory in Trenton, New Jersey nice and It wasn't that long after that she ended up having her exhibit at the at the MoMA So, you know what led to that? Talk about net working. She was very smart. So somebody from MoMA I think it was Elliot noise Came to see an exhibition of her student Pratt students work and met her there and She then invited him to a lecture that she was giving at the Metropolitan Museum of Art about Ceramics handicraft whatever Lecture and he came and then he commissioned her on behalf of MoMA to design this set Which was supposed to be an heirloom set the first white modern dinnerware and MoMA actually had it did approve each piece she said they didn't ask for changes, but there were some pieces they didn't include and It was called the museum shape and had this one woman show eventually which did put her on the map as a designer Yeah, absolutely. I saw I remember seeing an image of it was like a spread-and-vogue a magazine And then this is like really stylish woman surrounded by all of Eva's and that must have been such a Just within a few years when you think about that reversal of fortune amazing. It's just shocking to think about You know, we would literally be here all night if we tried to talk through all of the ensuing decades I love this photograph so much This was taken by my lovely daughter talisman. It's just so beautiful. She is just living her best life right there Like the queen that she is in that throne. It's just an amazing photograph You know, there are so many things I think that we could talk about when it comes to her work one of the things that we were talking about earlier today when we were looking at some of the pieces in the collection is she really Intuitively understood ergonomics like her work It's really meant for a human hand to hold. Well, everything she does he said everything she designed was meant to be touched Yeah, and In terms of function in her classes, she taught function very specifically that this Spout couldn't drift and whatever and the handle shouldn't be too heavy But when we asked her about it, she said of course it has to work function is not that of course it has to work But there are many solutions to how you can fulfill these functions many design solutions And that's what really interested her. Well, and I think you know when you think about it There's weren't that many people designers from from any background or movement that really understood how to create pieces that Were kind of only completed when a person was holding it or using it And I think that's something that's really remarkable and the fact that we experience and see them as these organic beautiful shapes which they are but they're also that way because She wanted them to Coexist with people Absolutely, they were done always as a gift for the user. Yeah, and that's very different She didn't believe in just self-expression as much of art is Days yeah, she believed in in an audience and pleasing the audience without imposing on them Can you talk a little bit about some of the project she worked on in the last few years of her life? I'm sure there were a lot Well, there was a set that came out called 101 And that was because she was 101 when she designed it and there was the Yamazaki silverware of flatware and there were lamps the Leocos lamps and Olivia what else did she do in the last in the last year? No, that was in the 50s. Oh Yes, well that was after she died. She did that one that Really is above and beyond But actually the very last thing she designed with her hands was a Bent wire egg cup two of them one for one egg and one for two eggs and it's beautiful like a sculpture And I have it sitting in the studio The felt things that you talked about were our felt wall tiles. Oh Based on her Original designs in the 50s. They made rugs. They made felt wall tiles Spinny back Filts felt just did that and all these things are on the market lot is on the market. Yeah In fact, I should say there's a brand new website that actually just launched Eva's isle.com Which Tali you were you built it, right? Well, I am a web developer and it's a beautiful website So you you did a really good job And it has all of a lot of a lot of information and then access to where you can access all the the works that are still being yeah It's in progress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is an amazing archive of Material I'll have to work with a couple of things before we go into questions from the audience I Found it really interesting because you know my assumption was wow if somebody imprisoned me on just leave for 16 months, I would be really angry about that And and yet she she she was invited to go back to Russia and went well first of all She never was angry first of all. She was not Political at all. She she said I always was a tourist in life She just observed and participated and she loved the Russian people and So she didn't hold it against them somehow and she really separated the regime Absolutely absolutely and even the way the reason she was arrested is that there was a guy a chemist in her factory that was arrested as part of the show trials and He was told that he would be shot Unless he gave names and he gave every name he could think of his uncle and Eva and Eva's model maker and She was actually accused of Successful conspiracy to kill Stalin and when she said but how successful could it have been he's alive They said don't make bad jokes But it was much more serious Yeah in 2000 some people from this Lominosa factory came to visit her and and Invited her to go back and visit the factory that she had been hadn't Seen since 1936 and she said well, I'm only going to go if I get a letter saying I'm totally Exonerated because she was officially expelled from Russia. So he wasn't taking any chances She got the letter actually her traveling exhibit was shown in St. Petersburg And then she went back She was invited to come to a kind of critique of the designers there And she said oh, I'm way too old to go by myself. I have to bring my daughter son-in-law and granddaughter So we all went and it was it was quite extraordinary and she immediately sat down and Started designing a tea set with the model maker there and that tea set Eventually they sent the model maker over to her studio to finish it and that's selling for thousands of dollars in st. Petersburg in Russia so she She did obviously understandably hold on to this Experience that she had of being falsely accused and then I learned recently that she she had this history project that she This research project she worked on for many many years a lot of time off from designing and She she was found out about this This event called the New York conspiracy and it was in 1741 and there were a lot of fires had broken out in New York City and It ended up that they blamed slaves and they thought it was a slave uprising and people who were nice to slaves and They interrogated these slaves and 30 of them were hung and burned to death and another family. It was just awful and She came to the conclusion that they were all Completely innocent and it reminded her of the time in in Russia in the prison where they were all innocent and Were interrogated in this way of you know tell names and you won't be burned and that kind of thing And I have to say her papers her research papers on this Have just been accepted by the New York Historical Society Which would have pleased her a lot Wow, I found that so fascinating because this you know this design icon You know You know at the height of you know her taking all this time off It really shows how much she cared about stamping out injustice Yeah, and actually it was at a time when the Factories in the Midwest were closing down because there was more so maybe there wasn't a whole lot of work then I don't know well, you know, I think The thing I just want to end on before we go to questions is just to talk a little bit about you and your family and What it was like having this amazing designer in your house working with the studios As we mentioned before Jean was you know the inspiration for the schmooze Which are so adorable and you really just kind of feel so much warmth when you see them on a table What was that like having a working studio as a child? Well, we were welcome as part of it all the time the studio was in the basement She had built a beautiful studio in the basement and we lived on the fifth floor of the same building and there was an intercom between Between the two and she liked to tell the story of how in the middle of an important business meeting My brother who was probably six or something called down on the intercom and said Billy kicked me. What should I do? That is a story that many working mothers can really Like relate to but I think she was very open to us in the studio She also gave us the most wonderful parties arts and crafts parties each of us The whole class was invited and every Easter and every Christmas We had a big class party where we decorated eggs and then we made Christmas decorations and beautiful big cakes So it was just lovely I just when I was gonna you know when I was thinking about asking you this question I had this fantasy in my mind of what it would be like to have Eva's isle as your mom and this photograph actually Like was exactly what I was hoping for these amazing kind of Craft-oriented experiences and you know well that was the work part Yeah, but the home part was very a lot of fun a bit unpredictable She was a very warm mother Our schedule was a little bit Unpredictable so I remember Enjoying very much going up to visit my cousin for dinner He was a block away and the dinner was served at six and everything was on the plate separate the peas and the rice And I thought that was just wonderful and years later. He said to me Oh, I loved coming down to your house for dinner You never knew what you were gonna have goulash or soup or ham and eggs And you never knew exactly when and that of course was how how we lived grass is always greener Grass is greener and she was very warm motherly person. I think as you can see from the schmoo and For example, she invented the tumbling tumbling was a time alone which Both my brother and I had every night when she wasn't traveling Which was maybe 15 minutes of just quiet time with her were either in the park or at home and we could talk about whatever we wanted to talk about and I have to say she loved cooking and she hated housework and We always even in the very beginning when she hardly had any money. I saw a budget a little bit of money housekeeper Very important know your strengths. That's also your strengths. That's right and your weaknesses and she She I remember her reading me stories check off stories and oh Henry stories and She always made poems for us from the time we were born. She made little poems and sang them to us and They were always had a touch of being educational a bit and There's one poem. I'd love to tell you about she wrote it to me when I was on my tenth birthday And it was called life and I'll tell you just the beginning and the end the beginning was It's life. You are living and life is here. It's not some time later. It's now genie dear and The last verse which is really lovely Between the not yet gilded past and the time for which we strive lies Unnoticed and not to last the moment which is life Isn't that lovely, you know Well on that very poignant note we'd love to take a couple of questions from the audience and there's microphones So if you can raise your hand if you have a question for Jean Or you I? Think they're probably gonna be more interested in what you have to say No question yeah, right up in the front row here Could you get a sense of what her favorite pieces to work on were and you know And if not what were your favorite pieces of hers? She thought of all of her designs as her children and I think she was proudest of the museum shape That was her favorite it was intended to be an heirloom and very elegant each each commission had a different Different requirement and that was that one and so she she explained how she didn't make it an S curve She loved the S curve, but she didn't make it an S curve She made it a straight line and then a curve and then another line to kind of grow from the Ground and I she enjoyed that her next Commission was to make something very Greenwich villagey So that was a completely different set that was the town and country set But she she thought of them as her children and she said whenever I would encounter one of my for example, she made a Very cheap set of glasses mass-produced set of glasses for federal glass and she said whenever I would see it in the Airport somewhere or whatever it was it was like seeing one of my children There's another question up in front Hello When she was first coming up with ideas would she draw first or was she's like kind of fiddle with something and Sculpt first first she would do it with her hands in the air like y'all friend showed and then she would sketch and She would make many kind of rough sketches many different sketches and then She would make a model originally. It was plasticine And also cutouts. Yeah silhouette cutouts Well, that was at the end in the beginning. I don't when she couldn't see very well She had cutouts that she felt that Olivia made with her So they would go from sketch to till she found the right curve and then to models which Long ago were plasticine models and then plaster models and then went to the factory and got a sample And that she adjusted kind of drove them crazy But you know this has to be thinner thick or whatever But it I think it began with her hands and she said an interesting thing Which is never tried to make something absolutely perfect because then you have nowhere to go We're looking at some of the technical drawings for This cooking pot that had a spout and she's so precise and how she wanted that spout to work that there were Seven cross-section drawings. Of course working drawings. I left out. That was the step before it went to the factory She was not going to leave anything open to interpretation Really not. She said every sixteenth of an inch makes a difference and it does you can tell when the curve is off great First of all, thank you. This has been wonderful. My question is about choice of color Russell Wright created a whole vocabulary of color and She seems to have either morphed into or chosen white Was that done on purpose or was there a reason behind it? Well her second set the the town and country set was a multi-colored many many colors and each one was supposed to go with the other you were just at random and The the museum set of course was supposed to be white that was the point of it the Hullcraft set that she designed in white had many decorations. She was in charge of the first I don't know eight and then they were decals put on so and then I have to say The set that's now in bedbath and no, yes Great. No, no, no, not great and barrel bedbath and beyond Sorry, sorry, forgive me the set that's now in design within reach Was when she proposed it to them she said look there's this great Design a kind of bull's-eye design and he said Whoever owned it at the time said white or nothing. Sorry. We're not going to take it with any design So that was against her Will will and of course when she was in Schramberg. There were lots and lots of designs that Those geometric pieces. So I think she liked color. It was just when the requirement was to make it white She made it white Hi there So it was mentioned earlier that your grandmother was a women's Liber so I was wondering what your If your mother participated in women's rights or civil rights, maybe what she Said that you could be when you could grow up if you could talk about that a little it's an interesting question She was not a women's Liber because I think her grandmother and her mother had done it for her She did not like to be thought of or called a woman woman designer. She wanted to be a designer and She I think by the time She was designing and working she just assumed that a woman could do anything There were a couple of times two times in her life when she was discriminated against as a woman But otherwise she didn't think of it. She thought of herself as a designer and that's that and One time was a design. She made for a chair for which she was very proud She got a mechanical patent for it. It was a spring wonderful chair and It was sent to the dye which is some kind of mold for it was sent to a factory in Oskaloosa, Iowa and she had great hopes for this chair. She just loved it and The foreman of the factory destroyed the dye and said no woman could ever make something like this and Now there are only two left one at MoMA and one in Montreal and the only the other time she mentioned that They were a bit condescending because she was a woman was when she went to the Federal Glass Factory Where she was going to design these mass produced glasses and she wanted to see the machine that made them to learn You know how to do it what to do and they thought a woman couldn't really understand big machine like that Well, she did become the first time in her life. She became political Was during the Vietnam War. I think that was the first time She became actively political and she drove us all down to Washington and we all had to you know Had signs and she took a lot of pictures of the people to show that they weren't hippies They were normal Middle-class people also there because at that time the newspaper said oh, well, they're just hippies who do that and She was very felt very strongly about that The last question Oh, sure, sure At one point she had designed I think it was the federal anyway some kind of drinking glasses And there were three samples and the bottoms were different on each sample And she was just looking what she should choose and at that time. Mr. Capasso had come to pick up the garbage Who was our garbage man in in Rockland County and she said call up mr. Capasso get him up here get him up here and she said mr. Capasso which one do you like of course? He was Italian which helps and He picked the one in it very good. Thank you mr. Capasso. I think we all thank mr. Capasso. We all thank him On that note, I really want to thank you for sharing all of these stories. It's fun remarkable life and a remarkable woman and Just really feel really lucky to learn all these new things about her