TYLER, TX.- A “perfect union of form and function” awaits visitors as the Tyler Museum of Art gets set to unveil its major fall exhibition, Eva Zeisel: The Shape of Life.

The exhibition, showcasing close to 100 pieces designed by the Hungarian-born artist who revolutionized ceramic design throughout the world and brought an original brand of modernism into American homes beginning in the 1940s continues through Dec. 9 in the TMA’s North Gallery.

The Shape of Life, organized by Erie Art Museum in Erie, Pennsylvania, spans more than 70 years in the broad and accomplished career of Zeisel, the legendary Eastern European artisan who continues to produce household and industrial designs as she approaches her 102nd birthday.

“Eva is perhaps best known in the design world for bringing warmth and feeling to the cold formalism of Bauhaus, and what is most remarkable about her work in general is the emotional connection,” TMA Curator Kentaro Tomio said. “Her designs, no matter how modernistic or intricate, display a genuine intimacy and distinct personality. Anyone can own and use the pieces based on her designs, yet they beautifully illustrate how artistically designed, mass-produced objects can be comparable to fine art.”

The exhibition guides the viewer through Zeisel’s vast array of design ideas and changes of style since the late 1920s, as well as narrating her long and eventful life – which included escaping a death sentence in the Soviet Union after being falsely accused in a plot to assassinate Josef Stalin. (That experience later was recounted in the novel “Darkness at Noon” by her friend Arthur Koestler.) The Shape of Life includes Eva Zeisel’s well known ceramic work for Hallcraft, Sears and Red Wing Pottery, as well as glass, metal and furniture design, and examples of her famed Town and Country series of modern stoneware. The exhibition also showcases her work for companies such as KleinReid, The Orange Chicken, and Crate and Barrel, the latter of which in 2005 introduced “Classic Century,” a reissue of her 1952 china collections.