Hans Hacker
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Hans Hacker | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 4, 1910 |
| Died | December 27, 1994 (aged 84) |
| Alma mater | Breslau Art School |
| Occupations | Ceramic decal designer, painter |
| Employer(s) | E. Wunderlich and Company, Commercial Decal |
| Spouse |
Johanna "Hanna" Krause
(m. 1934) |
| Elected | Lou Holtz Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame |
Hans Hacker (March 4, 1910 – December 27, 1994) was a ceramic decal designer and painter.
Hacker was born on March 4, 1910, in the city of Waldenburg (now Wałbrzych), Germany. Waldenburg was in the Silesia Province and became part of Poland after World War II. Hacker was one of seven children. His father August was a commercial ceramics artist and his mother, Eliese Moore Hacker, was a kindergarten teacher.
Hacker was showing and selling paintings by the time he was 11 or 12 years old. He graduated from the Breslau Art School in Breslau, Germany.
On October 22, 1934, Hacker married Johanna "Hanna" Krause, a daughter of Heinrich and Selma Spatscheck Krause. A native of Hacker's village, she had been born on October 1, 1913. They had three children. Hanna Hacker died January 12, 2008, in Burlington, Vermont, at the age of 94.
Professional career
As an adult, Hacker worked as head designer for E. Wunderlich and Company (a large producer of decals for the worldwide ceramics industry) in Germany. As a representative for Wunderlich, he first visited East Liverpool, Ohio (a center of pottery production, with 24 potteries in the area at the time) in 1932. He traveled back and forth between Germany and Ohio over the next half dozen years, tending to the growing business relationship between Wunderlich and Commercial Decal which made ceramics decals in the USA.
As the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Hacker and his family sought to leave the country and decided to settle permanently in East Liverpool in 1939. Hacker was hired by Commercial Decal as an art consultant for its East Liverpool decal plant. He was later named art and technical director of Commercial Decal. He retired from Commercial Decal in 1977, although he continued working as a consultant for many years afterward.
Especially via his work in perfecting the slide-off decal method, Hacker became a celebrated decal and ceramic designer. He was the most prolific designer of dinnerware patterns in history.
Fine artist
In addition to his work in the ceramics industry, Hacker was a painter who exhibited equal skill with oils and watercolors. He painted hundreds of scenes of East Liverpool and the surrounding area—including many paintings of Little Beaver Creek and the historic small village of Fredericktown six miles north of East Liverpool. He also did numerous paintings of northern West Virginia, just across the Ohio River from East Liverpool. His works are a comprehensive historic and visual record of two centuries of life in the area.