Baroness Hansi Stael Von Holstein

Place: Budapest

Born: 1913

Death: 1961

Biography:

Hansi Staël, also known as Baroness Hansi Stael von Holstein, was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1913. She grew up during World War I and traveled with her family to the Dolomite front and later to Fiume, occupied by Gabriele d'Annunzio. Staël studied at the Viennese Arts and Crafts Academy and at the Budapest Fine Arts Academy. She moved to Stockholm during World War II and worked mostly on textile designing and illustration. In the late 1940s, she arrived in Portugal, where she started a prolific and varied artistic production, including ceramics. She was the artistic director of SECLA (Sociedade de Exportação e Cerâmica Lda.) in Caldas da Rainha and proposed a new approach to industrial ceramics through the collaboration of invited artists. Staël died in London in 1961.