Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Red Wing Town & Country: Bohemians Among Us

MARTHA STEWART introduced us to Town and Country. Pictured among the Zeisel dinnerware in the "Collecting" column of her June 1996 issue were colorful organically-shaped dishes called Town and Country. Designed in 1946 for Red Wing Pottery of Minnesota, and inspired by that era's bohemian Greenwich Village scene, this line is famously assymetrical, humorously irreverent, and today, prohibitively rare and expensive.

Town and Country creamer, sugar, and teapot
We found our teapot in Galena, Illinois during one of our frequent long drives through the Midwest countryside. It was priced at an astronomical $200. We just couldn't afford it at the time, so we left it behind regretfully. But we never forgot it, and every time we were in the neighborhood, we would check to see if it was still there. After two years of admiring from afar, we finally bought the teapot before moving to San Francisco (fearing that we would never find Town and Country in California). We also pledged that hot water will never ever touch it. This teapot was too precious!

Left: seven comma bowls around a mustard jar; Right: seven coasters or spoon rests 
One reason for the appeal of this line are the colors of the pieces—dusk blue, forest green, chartreuse, sand, peach, rust, metallic bronze, and gray. They look great mixed together and each person around the table can have their favorite shade. The most famous pieces are the salt and pepper shakers (nicknamed "schmoos") with their expressive faces and fat little bodies. Similarly, the oil and vinegar cruets with their ceramic stoppers are beautiful to the eye and feel great in the hand.

Left: oil and vinegar cruets with ceramic and cork stoppers;  Right: salt and pepper shakers
Ironically, the rarest color in this line is white. The most elusive pieces are the lidded soup tureen, soup ladle, and left- and right-handed salad servers. We were fortunate enough to find these pieces quite early on before eBay. We have never seen any of these pieces in this color again in the sixteen years that we have been collecting.

Left: white soup tureen with lid;  Right: wood-handled salad servers in white
When we first read the Martha Stewart article, we were shocked that some of the collectors actually used (gasp!) their pieces. One of them even let their 4-year-old play with (read "break") the stuff . How awful, we thought. But, as the years have gone by, we found that Town and Country served our every day needs. We sip our first coffee from a Town and Country mug. We use the comma bowls for snacks, the cereal bowls for ice cream, and the deep vegetable bowls for pasta. Almost every piece has found its daily use. The teapot, however, still has yet to see hot water.

Our dish cupboard




Sunday, September 16, 2012

Hall Kitchencraft: The Quest for Domestic Bliss

IF YOU ASK ME which Zeisel teapot is my favorite, I would be hard pressed to choose which one. I mean, it would be like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. Would I choose curvy Classic over stately Museum? Quirky Town and Country over rustic Western Stoneware? It would be impossible. But if you ask me which teapot I use most often, that would be easy. It is the Hall Kitchencraft teapot. We use it so much that it doesn't even make it into the display case. It's always in the cupboard ready for the next brew. And, in a way, I think that's how it was meant to be.

Hall Kitchencraft: sugar bowl, teapot, creamer

Designed in 1954 as a line of purely utilitarian items, Kitchencraft was not without its innovations. The most beautiful piece in the line, in my opinion, is the refrigerator jug. Echoing Aalto's Savoy vase in its organic form, the jug was meant to be grasped by the hand through an indentation near the neck of the cylinder—a natural action by which Zeisel seems to question the need for regular handles. Why can't a handle be more like a stick (as on the creamer and the individual teapot), or large ear-like protrusions (like those on the casserole and beanpot)?

From left to right: bean pot, cookie jar, refrigerator jug

Not surprisingly, this line had no place settings, and instead of a cup, it has a mug for sipping that afternoon tea. The most common patterns are Casual Living (brown body with abstract feathers and dots on the white lids), and Tri-tone (overlapping fields of pink, blue, and teal). The cookie jar and the bean pot in this line can also be found in white, as well as a wide variety of decorations, from Hall's classic Autumn Leaf to all sorts of hideous gold polka dots and squiggles.

Left: Tri-tone pattern; right: Casual Living pattern

Our set in the Casual Living pattern was the first Zeisel line that we "completed" (that is, we were able to collect very piece.) Even now, Kitchencraft is relatively under-appreciated and can be found easily and purchased for not a very bad price—and to be really honest, this is probably the biggest reason why we use this teapot every day. We know that if we ever broke it, we wouldn't have to take out another mortgage to buy another one.

Bottom stamp: Hall Kitchencraft

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Hallcraft Century: The Perils of Porcelain

WAY BACK BEFORE 1stDibs, and definitely back before eBay became the largest flea market on earth, the place online to find people who had mid-century modern things to sell was a little forum on AOL called Deco Echoes. There was no real-time bidding, sniping, or Paypal. You posted what you were looking for or what you had to sell, and wait for the e-mails to come. Once a sale is made you snail mailed your check or money order to the seller, and, if you happen to be buying something as fragile as china, you held your breath until the package arrived at your doorstep. Which brings me to Century.

Hallcraft Century creamer, sugar bowl, and teapot

Century was the second of the three lines that Eva Zeisel designed for Hall. Showing unusual restraint this time around, the company only made a few lines available with applied decoration, the most common of which are Fern, Sunglow, and Garden of Eden. Pure white pieces are exceedingly rare and highly desired. Although aesthetically as beautiful as (some might even argue that it was a more sophisticated design than) Tomorrow's Classic, it had a fatal flaw—it was prone to breakage during shipment. Released in 1956, Century is distinguished by its teardrop-shaped plates, platters and bowls. One of the most iconic photographs of Zeisel's designs is a nested stack of white Century bowls and platters against a black background. Used on the cover of the exhibition catalog "Eva Zeisel: Designer for Industry", the pieces resembled a frozen milk drop caught on a high-speed camera.

Left: Century bowls and platters; right: book cover, Eva Zeisel: Designer for industry

Unfortunately, the lovely points of the teardrop shapes did not stack well and would chip or break during shipment. Of the close to thirty pieces that we bought from our lovely Deco Echoes seller for $200 (which was quite a big expense at the time!), only a handful survived the shipment. Of course, the fact that he just threw all the pieces into a box with no bubble wrap in between the pieces, or insulation on the outside walls of the box, probably did not help. Although we managed to get only some of our money back (the seller got the bulk of the insurance money and we were refunded the considerably lesser purchase price), we did learn what eventually became the mantra of our collecting—bubblewrap, double box, insurance!

Bottom stamp: Hallcraft Century


Sunday, August 12, 2012

Tomorrow's Classic: It's Just a Fantasy

IF YOU POLL most Zeisel collectors, chances are their first pieces were from the Tomorrow's Classic line of dishes from Hallcraft. They are easily the most common line of Zeisel designs available in the secondary market. Brad and I have a game that we play when we go to flea markets or antique stores—the first one who spots a Zeisel gets a kiss. More often than not, a piece of Tomorrow's Classic will present itself somewhere in the aisles.

Tomorrow's Classic creamer, coffee server, sugar bowl, and teapot

Although the unadorned white pieces are the most sought after today, when the line was designed in 1952, Hallcraft saw them as the perfect vessels for applied decoration. And decorate they did—from the popular floral Bouquet to the quirky gold marbled Surf Ballet. In addition to the patterns, there were also pieces in solid black, gray, and orange. We have even seen lobsters printed on the large platters, and advertising applied to the jugs. Brad once had this ambition to collect a place setting of each pattern but we wisely realized that we would never have enough cupboard space to store all that china. So, our final set consists of white and black pieces, along those decorated with Fantasy—a pattern of black squiggles and gold dots conceived by Ross Littell, who along with William Katavolos and Douglas Kelley, would later design the iconic T-Chair.

Fantasy pattern

With close to forty pieces in the line, it is one of the most extensive commissions that Eva has designed. In addition to the usual place settings and serving pieces, there are candlesticks, cruets, and after dinner servers. There are even pieces that we probably have no use for today, such as marmites, onion soup bowls, and asparagus trays. Innovations included handles that flare up gracefully from the body of the jugs and pots (as opposed to being applied), oblong plates (as opposed to being round), lug handled platters, and reversible egg cups (one end for a hardboiled egg or use the other end for poached).

Tomorrow's Classic gravy boat, vase, and reversible egg cups.

I think my favorite piece is the basket-shaped gravy boat, although the hardest one to find was the flower vase. Tomorrow's Classic makes for an elegant, though formal table, so they come out only during Christmas, Thanksgiving, or when the Queen comes to visit (long may he reign).


Bottom stamp, Hallcraft Tomorrow's Classic

Crate and Barrel and Royal Stafford recently re-released Tomorrow's Classic and married them with pieces from another of Eva's lines for Hallcraft. The combined line is called  Classic Century. The new pieces have a slightly yellower cast than the vintage ones, and they added a mug to the line, which is just an elongated version of the classic cup. Needless to say, we prefer the older stuff, but overall, the re-released pieces have successfully kept the integrity and playfulness of Eva's design. So, the next time you and your significant other find yourselves at a Crate and Barrel, you too can play "Spot the Zeisel". Opportunities for free kisses should never be wasted.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Boys meet Eva: A Harlequin Romance


THIS LOVE STORY started in a little railroad apartment above a country store in Dekalb, IL. Brad just started his post as a design professor at NIU, and I had just moved to the US from Canada, having given up my job at an ad agency so that we can finally live in the same city after two years of being apart. We were graphic designers but our infatuation with mid-century modern design was in its very infancy. I think we had one piece of modern furniture at the time, a red Eames side shell chair that we spotted while driving through Minneapolis (we did a lot of driving in those days).



The Country Store below us was actually a thrift store run by a local women's organization. Brad spotted a set of dishes in their window one day and told me about it. Needless to say, it was love at first sight. The undulating forms of the platters, the oblong (not round) plates, and the graceful sweep of the jug handles (plus the $10 price tag for the set!) proved irresistible. The stamp at the bottom of the dishes read "Hallcraft by Eva Zeisel" but we had no idea who she was until she was profiled a few months later in the June 1996 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine. We found out that Zeisel was one of the most prolific and groundbreaking modern designers of the twentieth century. We learned that the dishes we now owned was from a line called Tomorrow's Classic and the pink and gray pattern was named Harlequin.

Harlequin pattern
We saw pictures of the other dishes she designed. We were mesmerized, and we were hooked. Sixteen years later, we are still in love with Zeisel's designs, and surprisingly—even through hundreds of pieces, irrational treasure hunts, and harrowing cross-country household moves—with each other. These are our stories, told through the pieces of porcelain, china, and glass conceived by a remarkable woman we simply call Eva.

Photo by Talisman Brolin. www.talismanphoto.com