hedi schoop

I found this little guy lurking among the dingy glassware at Gee-Dub (my local Goodwill store) today, immediately fell in love with all ten inches of his lucid creaminess, charming shape and couldn't pass him up for just $1.99.  The best part of Gee-Dub shopping is doing a bit of sleuthing, once I get home. I discovered that he is a Dutch boy vase, (there's an opening in his backpack for flowers) designed by Hedi Schoop in Hollywood, circa 1940.

Schoop was born to a prominent family in Zurich, Switzerland.  Her father was editor of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung and president of Dolder Hotels. She studied sculpture, architecture, painting and fashion design at several European institutions, including Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna and Reimann Institute in Berlin. She was also an accomplished dancer in Germany, as was her sister, Trudi, a comedic dancer who pioneered the treatment of mental illness with dance therapy.

Frederick Hollander and Hedi Schoop

Schoop was married to well-known composer, Frederick Hollander. In 1933 she and her husband fled Nazi Germany, settling in Hollywood, where he eventually wrote music for over one hundred films. Many of his songs were made famous by Marlene Dietrich. Hollander can be seen as the piano accompanist in A Foreign Affair, 1948, where he speaks a few words of dialog. He received four Academy Award nominations for composition.

Hedi began experimenting first in plaster and later in pottery, and soon became one of California's most respected manufacturers of ceramic products. She personally designed nearly all the pieces produced at the North Hollywood factory.

At her studio's height in the 1940s, Schoop employed over fifty workers and produced over 30,000 gift ware items per year, including such items as such as planters, bowls, ashtrays, candy dishes, and lamps. Sadly, a disastrous fire destroyed her factory in 1958. She chose not to rebuild, instead selling some of her molds to other local manufacturers, and began to focus instead, on painting. Schoop died in Van Nuys, California in 1995, at the age of 90.

top photo: taken by me

following photos borrowed from Google images