#Suzie Zuzek

[holespoles]

Suzie Zuzek (artist and textile designer) 1920 - 2011 Meeow, 1970.

[cosmonautroger]

Suzie Zuzek

[anotherdayinbliss]

Pattern designs by Suzie Zuzek Watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper. Made in 1972.

[abwwia]

Suzie Zuzek, drawing Pretty Butters, in her Key West Hand Fabrics studio, late 1960s. Pretty Butters will be offered in Suzie Zuzek: The Artist Behind Lilly Pulitzer from 31 March-17 April 2023 at Christie’s online. © The Original I.P. LLC

Suzie Zuzek (1920–2011) was an American artist and textile designer whose work was mainly seen in Lilly Pulitzer dresses, textiles and furnishings from the 1960s to the 1980s, and became exclusively associated with the brand until its closure in 1984. Via Wikipedia

[dd20century]

SUSIE ZUZEK: THE WOMAN BEHIND THE LILLY PULITZER BRAND

Editor's Note: This post ran originally on September 8, 2021.

In the early 1960s socialite Lilly Pulitzer marketed simple casual shifts with eye-catching prints that would go on to make the line instantly recognizable. Lilly Pulitzer dresses remain popular today. Ms. Pulitzer bought fabrics from Key West Hand Print Fabrics, and Susie Zuzek was head designer during that time. According to the Cooper Hewitt Museum website, ���The unexpected combination of classic sportswear styling with playful, eclectic patterns defined a uniquely American style, often spotted on fashion icons such as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy….the “Lilly Look” was synonymous with wild, wonderful prints.”

Susie Zuzek who was the designer behind the “Lilly Look” studied at Pratt Institute and graduated in 1949. She found work in New York but moved to Key West Florida after getting married. In the early 1960s, she began working part-time for Key West Hand Print Fabrics while raising her family.

The Cooper Hewitt Museum exhibition, Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand celebrates the designer’s work. The Cooper Hewitt Museum website states the show features “original watercolor and gouache design drawings by Zuzek, alongside finished screen-printed textiles….The exhibition will demonstrate the process of translating an artist’s rendering to fabric, and ultimately fashion, through silkscreen printing.”

Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand is currently running at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City until January 2, 2022. Admission to the museum is free, but if you plan to attend the museum suggests reserving tickets through their website.

Watch a video on the story of Key West Hand Print Fabrics.

Drawing, Puffins, © January 22, 1981. Designed by Suzie Zuzek (Agnes Helen Zuzek de Poo, American, 1920–2011) for Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc. Brush and watercolor, white gouache, pen and black ink, graphite on paper. Photo: Matt Flynn © The Original I.P. LLC. Image source.

[lostfunzones]

Suzie Zuzek (American, 1920-2011) Lilly of the Valley II, 1967

[mybeingthere]

Textile designer SUZIE ZUZEK (American, 1920-2011)

“Suzie Zuzek is somebody whose work is familiar to millions of people, and who had a major impact on the social history and the material culture of the 1960s and ’70s, but most people have never heard her name,” said Cooper Hewitt textile curator Susan Brown.

"The road from basement obscurity to posthumous recognition was a long and winding one, spearheaded by a St. Louis lawyer named Becky Smith, who first encountered Zuzek’s designs while on the hunt for vintage upholstery fabric. She ended up in Key West and ran into Zuzek’s daughter, Martha, who shared her late mother’s story. Smith says she was captivated, and immediately made it her mission to bring the story to light: “What if your mom sat on the second floor of an art studio for a quarter of a century and created an iconic look through her creative genius and nobody knows her name?”

Born in 1920, Zuzek grew up on a dairy farm outside of Buffalo, New York. After serving in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II, she studied textile design and illustration at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She graduated at the top of her class and worked for the New York-based fabric company Herman Blanc before relocating to Key West with her husband, from whom she separated not long afterwards. Eventually, she ended up with a job at Key West Hand Print Fabrics, a local outfit run by a group of former Broadway set designers.

“There are a lot of larger-than-life characters in the story, around her, but she herself was pretty quiet,” Brown said, recalling conversations she had with local residents for a short documentary that will accompany the exhibition. “I get the feeling she was more taciturn than shy. People say she had a really wicked sense of humour.”

https://www.wmagazine.com/.../suzie-zuzek-lilly-pulitzer...

[tournevole]

Suzie Zuzek.

[senor-plume]

Suzie Zuzek (American artist and textile designer) 1920 - 2011 Meeow, 1970 watercolour, ink, and graphite on paper

[mega-delicatelysuperbcollector]

Fresh Fruit with Suzie Zuzek (repost)

AND WE LIKE HER, TOO!

[holespoles]

Suzie Zuzek, American artist and textile designer (1920 - 2011) Eric cat pattern

[raheltade]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: NWT Lilly Pulitzer Vintage Halter Maxi Dress in Maricela by Suzie Zuzek Size 8.

[anotherdayinbliss]

Pattern designs by Suzie Zuzek  Watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper. Made in 1972.

[jupiterjazzzzz]

08.06.23 discovery - women in textile design : suzie zuzek / althea mcnish / sarah mary taylor 

[dd20century]

Susie Zuzek: The Woman Behind The Lilly Pulitzer Brand

Editor's Note: This post originally ran on September 8, 2021.

In the early 1960s socialite Lilly Pulitzer marketed simple casual shifts with eye-catching prints that would go on to make the line instantly recognizable. Lilly Pulitzer dresses remain popular today. Ms. Pulitzer bought fabrics from Key West Hand Print Fabrics, and Susie Zuzek was head designer during that time. According to the Cooper Hewitt Museum website, “The unexpected combination of classic sportswear styling with playful, eclectic patterns defined a uniquely American style, often spotted on fashion icons such as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy….the “Lilly Look” was synonymous with wild, wonderful prints.”

Susie Zuzek who was the designer behind the “Lilly Look” studied at Pratt Institute and graduated in 1949. She found work in New York but moved to Key West Florida after getting married. In the early 1960s, she began working part-time for Key West Hand Print Fabrics while raising her family.

The Cooper Hewitt Museum exhibition, Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand celebrates the designer’s work. The Cooper Hewitt Museum website states the show features “original watercolor and gouache design drawings by Zuzek, alongside finished screen-printed textiles….The exhibition will demonstrate the process of translating an artist’s rendering to fabric, and ultimately fashion, through silkscreen printing.”

Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand is currently running at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City until January 2, 2022. Admission to the museum is free, but if you plan to attend the museum suggests reserving tickets through their website.

Visit the Cooper Hewitt Museum website for more details.

Watch a video on the story of Key West Hand Print Fabrics.

Drawing, Puffins, © January 22, 1981. Designed by Suzie Zuzek (Agnes Helen Zuzek de Poo, American, 1920–2011) for Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc. Brush and watercolor, white gouache, pen and black ink, graphite on paper. Photo: Matt Flynn © The Original I.P. LLC. Image source.

[professorpski]

Suzie Zuzek For Lilly Pulizter

If you only think of pink and green shifts when you think of Lilly Pulitzer fashions, think again. I personally could live without a pink and green shift, but if you love fabric design you will want to live with this book. Suzie Zuzek designed the textiles which made so much of the simple shifts and caftans, skirts and shorts, which made for the Florida look of the 1960s. A look that meant leisure and play and the water and the beach.

Zuzek worked for Key West Hand Print Fabrics after she got her degree from Pratt Institute on the GI Bill for she had served as a WAAC in World War II. It was while serving in the corps that Agnes Helen Zuzek of upstate New York picked up the Suzie nickname. The Lilly Pulitzer company changed hands several times and lost its rights to the textile prints, but Zuzek’s archive has been rescued and that’s how we got this book. As well as the exhibition that I blogged recently at the Cooper Hewitt.

Susan Brown and Caroline Rennolds Milbank tell her story, the story of the company, the story of the Lilly Pulitzer encounter, and then offer page after page of her playful, beautiful prints. They range from animals--see the pelicans and tigers up top-- to florals--to sundial faces--all of them with the same spirited movement and playfulness. Zuzek’s drawings were sometimes bright and sometimes far more subtle than the colors chosen for the textile. Case in point: the warm brown tigers in the grass versus the lime-green version as shorts. Anyone interested in textile design will want to sit down with this book and study her work.

You can find it at your local bookstore, or here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/suzie-zuzek-for-lilly-pulitzer-susan-brown/1133331583;jsessionid=5BDFF79664B098F73DF52BB438B4506D.prodny_store02-atgap08?ean=9780847867646

For the exhibition, go here: For more info on visiting, go here: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/events/current-exhibitions/