Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)

Piroska NOVÁK: On the porcelain designer career of Éva Ambrus

goods put on the market often failed to please consumers.34 The calibre and talent of the designers, however, was vividly displayed at the National Silicate Industrial Triennale, staged in Kecskemét between 1979 and 1988. The catalogues are full of outstanding, ground-breaking design solutions, making it difficult to understand the shabbiness of contemporary goods offered by factories. Constrained by the need to meet annual production quotas, however, fine ceramics factories were unwilling to

manufacture innovative products for which preliminary needs assessment and market research were generally not conducted. Superb designers therefore worked in vain, as the factories insisted on those designs and sets that had already proven successful. Given these circumstances, Éva Ambrus’s porcelain design activities were indeed exceptional. She always made wise and well- thought-out compromises, which is why her work is so ageless and is still admired today.35

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