Claire Zeisler

Zeisler circa 1980 with works from her Dimensional Fibers

Claire Zeisler (April 18, 1903 - September 30, 1991) was a noted American fiber artist who expanded the expressive qualities of knotted and braided threads.

Claire Block was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Columbia College in Chicago for one year, then in 1921 married Harold Florsheim (an heir to Florsheim Shoe). In the 1930s she bought works by Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, and Picasso, and as well as tribal objects including African sculptures, tantric art, ancient Peruvian textiles and more than 300 American Indian baskets. After her divorce in 1943, she married Ernest Zeisler, a physician and author, in 1946.

Zeisler studied at the Chicago Institute of Design (formerly New Bauhaus) in the 1940s with Eugene Dana and the Illinois Institute of Technology where she was taught by the Russian avant-garde sculptor Alexander Archipenko and the Chicago weaver Bea Swartchild. In the 1950s she created flat weavings using a traditional loom, but by 1962 she began making freestanding, three-dimensional fiber sculptures using a variety of techniques.

Zeisler's work was presented in retrospective exhibits in the Art Institute of Chicago (1979) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1985).

References

• "Claire Zeisler, an Artist, Collector And Fiber-Art Innovator, 88", New York Times obituary, October 1, 1991
• "Oral history interview with Claire Zeisler, 1981 June". Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/zeisle81.htm. 
• Video Data Bank interview, 1979
• "Claire Zeisler papers, 1903-1992". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). Smithsonian Institution. http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!209057!0. 

See also

• Fiber art
• Weaving

Persondata
Name	Zeisler, Claire
Alternative names
Short description	American artist
Date of birth	April 18, 1903
Place of birth
Date of death	September 30, 1991
Place of death