CARSTENS TÖNNIESHOF ‘ATELIER’ SERIES ‘BERLIN’ VASE Nr. 103 (28 cm)

A rare Atelier Series I vase from the CARSTENS TÖNNIESHOF studio collection of 1962/64.  The coveted 'Berlin' décor designed by Gerda Heuckeroth applied to an elegant Heinz Siery gourd form (103). GERDA HEUCKEROTH began her career with an apprenticeship under renowned ceramist Siegfried Möller and studies at the School of Applied Arts in Bremen.  She showed her first pieces at the Grassi Museum in Leipzig in 1939.  Less than two years later she was appointed the artistic director at Carstens-Uffrect KG in Neuhaldensleben and soon took over the management of the group's Hubbe branch.  (The Carstens-Uffrecht factory would be nationalized by the DDR with the division of Germany and operate as VEB Haldensleben up until reunification.)  During WWII Heuckeroth set up a workshop in her home in a suburban district of Hamburg.  Following the war, she worked for various firms as a designer of both forms and décors, among them Grünstadt, Villeroy & Boch, and the Koninkliijk Plateelbakkerij Z