Kay Hackett was an artist and

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

designer most known for her work for

Stangl Pottery Stangl Pottery was a company in Flemington (and later Trenton), New Jersey, that manufactured a line of dinnerware and other items. The company was originally founded as Samuel Hill Pottery in 1814, until 1860 when it became Fulper Pottery. Th ...

Personal life

Kay Hackett, born Kathleen Kay Kastner in 1919, grew up in

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. Her talent as an artist was noticed early on by two townspeople in Batavia who provided Kay with the necessary funds for art lessons when she was a teen. She later enrolled at

New York State College of Ceramics The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University (NYSCC) is a statutory college of the State University of New York located on the campus of Alfred University, Alfred, New York. There are a total of 616 students, including 536 undergradu ...

Alfred University Alfred University is a private university in Alfred (village), New York, Alfred, New York. It has a total undergraduate population of approximately 1,600 students. The university hosts the New York State College of Ceramics, which includes The ...

to study ceramic design. Kay married Martin Hackett in 1944 and had two sons, Pat and Dave. She and Martin divorced in 1947. Hackett died in 2016 at the age of 96 in North Hanover,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

Stangl

Kay had early success selling her ceramic designs to potteries. Betty Stangl, a fellow undergraduate at Alfred University and daughter of Stangl Pottery Vice President Martin Stangl, suggested to her father that he should hire Kay. Stangl was particularly interested in Kay's thesis on the glazing of red clay - which would become a key element in the company's future success. When Kay graduated at twenty-one, she initially turned down Stangl's $20/week proposal, holding out until she was offered $25/week. Her first dinnerware production for Stangl Pottery, called ''Verna'', went into production less than a year after she started at the company. Kay went on to create designs ''Tulip'' and ''Fruit'' later that same year. The latter being one of the most popular designs in Stangl Pottery history. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Kay left Stangl Pottery to work for General Motor's Eastern Aircraft division in Trenton. There she created line drawings for repair manuals for the

Grumman Avenger The Grumman TBF Avenger (designated TBM for aircraft manufactured by General Motors) is an American World War II-era torpedo bomber developed initially for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and eventually used by several air and naval av ...

airplane. She returned to Stangl in 1948, and continued until 1965, when she and her husband started a joint antique business. Kay is credited with designing forty Stangl dinnerware patterns that were put into production. She additionally designed over 100 artware and novelty products for the company. Her designs were often nature based and all were hand-painted.

Legacy

In 2017, the

Trenton City Museum Mansion House (also referred to as Ellarslie and McCall House) is a historic residence located in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The house was built as a summer residence for Henry McCall Sr. of Philadelphia in 1848, and i ...

mounted a retrospective of Kay's work. The exhibition paid special attention to one of her most famous designs, ''Thistle'', which was manufactured by Stangl from 1951 to 1967. A cup and saucer designed by Kay titled ''Lyric'' is housed in the Museum of Fine Art, Boston's collection.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hackett, Kay American women ceramists 1919 births 2016 deaths

Personal life

Stangl

Legacy

See also

References