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Hanna Harag Zunz, Hamburg, Germany, 1915-2007

Hanna Harag Zunz was born in Hamburg to a religious Zionist family. In the early 1930s she studied education, music, and art in Hamburg. Among other things she studied the history of art with Erwin Panofsky. Her acquired her experience in ceramics studying with the potter Siegfried Möller in the village of Kupfermühle, Germany, but she was forced to abandon her studies because she was Jewish. She also studied ceramics in Teplice, Czechoslovakia, which was one of the traditional centers of ceramic arts in Europe at the time.

In 1940, after escaping from Europe to England, she made Aliyah to the Land of Israel. At first she settled in Tel Aviv, but then she moved to Jerusalem, where she worked for two years in Hedwig Grossman’s studio. During this period she also taught at Deborah Cullen’s School of Progressive Eduction, and she also was one of the founders of the Beit Jala Arts and Crafts Center for the creation of ceramic finjans, where she collaborated with Arab potters.

In 1943 she moved to Haifa. She worked first as the Manager of Kühns Ceramics, but in 1944 she quit and opened her own private ceramics studio. Although she concentrated on independent work in her studio, she also participated in a number of commercial and educational initiatives. In 1946, for example, she founded a department of painting on industrial ceramics. Within this framework she trained workers and also created functional designs. In 1948 she founded an arts and crafts center in the Kfar Batya youth village, and from 1949-1951, after the War of Independence, she worked with soldiers, involving them in hands-on work making pottery as therapy.

Harag Zunz’s work is typified by the use of local materials. Most of her work used kilns, but she also produced some architectural work. In spite of her use of local materials, Harag Zunz’s work differs both from the archeological line followed by Hedwig Grossman and from the decorative oriental style of Chava Samuel. The forms of the vessels she created were influenced by European Modernism in their avoidance of decoration, in their organic lines, and in their use of terra sigillata and ceramic glazes.

Teaching

1940 Art and craftsmanship, Beit Zeirot Mizrahi, Tel Aviv
1941-1942 School for Progressive Education, Jerusalem
1948-19498 Teacher training and establishment of a ceramic workshop, Amit Youth Village Kfar Batya , Ra'anana
1949-1951 Art therapy for blind soldiers
1954-1978 Ceramics, Oranim Academic College of Education, Tivon
1956-1965 Industrial ceramics, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa and its branch in Tel Aviv
1963 1963 Master Class, Ceramic Science and Engineering, Hochschule Koblenz, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany
1963 Visiting lecturer, Porcelain Academy, Florence, Italy
1979-1988 Professor-Colleague, Art Department, University of Haifa

Awards And Prizes

1952 First Prize, General Exhibition, The Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem
1955 Ceramic Exhibition, Haifa Museum of Art, First prize
1956 First Prize, General Exhibition, The Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem
1961 International Craft Exhibition, Tel-Aviv, First prize
1964 National Ceramic Exhibition, Beit Hakranot, Haifa, First prize
1967 Industrial Design Exhibition, Tel Aviv, First prize
1969 Second Prize, Museum Haaretz, Tel Aviv