Suzie Zuzek (1920–2011) was an American artist and
textile designer
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
whose work was mainly seen in
Lilly Pulitzer
Lillian Pulitzer Rousseau (November 10, 1931 – April 7, 2013) was an American entrepreneur, fashion designer, and socialite. She founded Lilly Pulitzer, Inc., which produces floral print clothing and other wares.
Career
Lilly and husband H ...
dresses, textiles and furnishings from the 1960s to the 1980s, and became exclusively associated with the brand until its closure in 1984. In the early 21st century, she was eventually acknowledged as the creator of some of the most widely recognized textiles of the 1960s and 1970s. A retrospective exhibition of her designs, curated in 2019 and shown in 2021 at the
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...
, both recognized the impact of her work, and brought her out of obscurity.
Early life
Zuzek was born Agnes Helen Zuzek in 1920, to Yugoslavian immigrant parents.
She grew up outside
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
, and 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 ...
served in the
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.
Afterwards, she studied textile design at the
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...
where she was top of her class, and after graduating in 1949, went on to work for a New York fabric company, Herman Blanc.
[ She married John de Poo, who came from ]Key West
Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...
.
Career
After marriage, Zuzek left Herman Blanc and between 1954–1955 she and her husband moved to Key West
Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...
in Florida, but then separated. This left her a single mother to three daughters. She eventually found work as a textile designer for Key West Hand Print Fabrics, a small screen-printing company founded in 1961 by a gay couple, Peter Pell & Jim Russell,[ who had formerly worked for ]Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...
as set designer
Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trained ...
s.[
In 1962 ]Lilly Pulitzer
Lillian Pulitzer Rousseau (November 10, 1931 – April 7, 2013) was an American entrepreneur, fashion designer, and socialite. She founded Lilly Pulitzer, Inc., which produces floral print clothing and other wares.
Career
Lilly and husband H ...
traveled to Key West to locate the source of some material she had found elsewhere, reportedly demanding "Is this your shit?" and subsequently placed large orders for thousands of yards of fabric.[ A few years later, Key West Hand Prints were supplying Pulitzer with over five thousand yards of custom Zuzek-designed textiles a week.][ Pulitzer eventually bought out the company, as Zuzek's seemingly carefree artisanal textile designs were a key part of her label's image,][ and almost every Pulitzer garment was made up in a Zuzek print.][ Between 1962 and 1985, Zuzek produced over 1500 designs for the company.][ One of her first textiles for Pulitzer was worn by ]Jacqueline Kennedy
Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A po ...
at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts
Hyannis Port (or Hyannisport) is a small residential village located in Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. It is an affluent summer community on Hyannis Harbor, 1.4 miles (2.3 km) to the south-southwest of Hyannis.
Community
It has ...
in 1962.[
]
Despite their apparent effortless flow, Zuzek's designs were extremely complex, their motifs running in multiple directions over the surface of the textile and designed to ensure maximum coverage and minimal textile wastage when cutting out garments that used as much pattern as possible.[ While Zuzek favored a naturalistic color scheme, designing both bright flowers and softly hued animals in true-to-life hues, Pulitzer had them printed up in strong, vibrant colors.][ Although Pulitzer worked almost exclusively in Zuzek prints which made up 85 percent of her output, she and Zuzek did not collaborate specifically on the designs which were entirely Zuzek's own with no input from anyone else.][ Some of her designs included a 1972 print of green and purple cabbages called "Cole Slaw" and "The Reef", a 1979 underwater-themed fish and shells print.][ In addition to her work for Pulitzer, Zuzek designed a motif for the Key West flag, and her prints were used for boat sails and the uniforms for the Florida Tourist Board.][ One of her daughters, Martha de Poo, became head of the Key West Hand Prints art department.][
In 1985 Zuzek retired from Key West Hand Prints.][
]
Later life and death
Zuzek remained in Key West, where she continued to paint, sculpt and create ceramic work.[ She died in 2011.][
]
Legacy
In 1984, following the filing for bankruptcy of Lilly Pulitzer, Zuzek's archive became lost, and was assumed to have been thrown away in the aftermath of the bankruptcy.[ In the 1990s when Lilly Pulitzer was revived, none of Zuzek's designs were brought along with it.][ The new owners of Lilly Pulitzer did not buy rights to the brand's heritage.][ In 2007, a ]St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
lawyer called Becky Smith, while seeking vintage Lilly Pulitzer upholstery fabric, met Martha de Poo, and was introduced to Zuzek.[ At this time, Smith had assumed that the prints were all designed by Lilly Pulitzer, which was how they had been originally marketed (to Zuzek's chagrin), and the discovery that they were almost entirely the work of Zuzek inspired her to raise awareness of the textile designer.][ Zuzek's archive was rediscovered under the floorboards of a warehouse, and Smith liaised with de Poo to help raise awareness and recognition of the Suzie Zuzek name and work.][ The archive, numbering over 2500 original drawings, was bought by Smith with the assistance of investors, and properly stored, catalogued and conserved.][ It is currently (as of 2022) owned by a private company, The Original I.P. L.L.C.][
In 2019 the ]Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...
curated an exhibition dedicated to Zuzek's work, including her graphite and watercolor designs and drawings featuring floral motifs and a wide range of novelty themes such as animals, cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...
, and mythical creatures.[ Titled "Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand", the show firmly placed Zuzek's textiles in context as a key aspect of Pulitzer's success.][ The curator, Susan Brown, told ]W magazine
''W'' is an American fashion magazine that features stories about style through the lens of culture, fashion, art, celebrity, and film.
W was created in 1972 by James Brady, the publisher of sister magazine ''Women's Wear Daily'' (''WWD''), ori ...
that Zuzek's work was widely known and recognized, and had had a "major impact on the social history and the material culture of the 1960s and ’70s", but that like many textile designers, her name had gone unheard and unknown, and this was a rare opportunity to give her due credit.[ The Museum also permanently acquired a group of ten Zuzek drawings.][
In addition to the Zuzek designs in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, other museums holding Zuzek's work with credit include the ]RISD Museum
The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple build ...
and the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
.
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zuzek, Suzie
1920 births
2011 deaths
American textile designers
American women artists
American people of Yugoslav descent
American women sculptors
American women ceramists
Artists from Buffalo, New York
Military personnel from Buffalo, New York
21st-century American women artists
20th-century American women artists