Eszter Haraszty; Designer With Penchant for Poppies
Eszter Haraszty, versatile Hungarian-born designer whose work included homes, clothing, paintings, tiles, textiles and stained glass, often with her signature Iceland poppy motif, has died. She was 74.
Her husband, food and travel writer Bruce David Colen, said Miss Haraszty died on Thanksgiving in Malibu of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Internationally known for her colorful work, Miss Haraszty served as head of textiles and planning for Knoll International and designed its Paris showroom. She was also designer and color consultant to Victor Gruen Associates and IBM and created a line of women’s fashions for B. H. Wragge.
In addition to private homes in the United States and Europe, her projects included a children’s play area for American President Line, restaurant interiors of the American Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair, and floral banners for the 15th anniversary observances at the Los Angeles County Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Educated at the University of Fine Arts in Budapest, Miss Haraszty began her career in costume and stage design in Hungary. But after moving to the United States in 1946, she concentrated on designs for the home.
Miss Haraszty’s love of flowers, particularly the poppy, and her myriad talents were typically demonstrated in her own home on a two-acre site in Coldwater Canyon. She filled the house with fresh flowers that she grew, and added her own floral tiles on the floors, embroidered flowers on cushions and upholstery, and hung her paintings of flowers on the walls.
She painted poppies, which reminded her of her native Budapest, on pottery vases filled with real poppies, and even (she once told The Times) on her toenails. She once designed a stained glass “poppy window” for a Holmby Hills house owned by Gary Cooper. Colen said that by her request, Miss Haraszty will be cremated and the ashes strewn in a bed of poppies.
She was the author of several articles and books about needlepoint, embroidery, flowers and home entertaining.
A frequent lecturer to garden clubs, Miss Haraszty also worked with the Costume Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and taught a course titled “Design From Nature” at UCLA.
Among her awards were five gold medals from the Assn. of Interior Designers for textile designs and an award from the Pasadena Art Museum for tiles. Her work is represented in permanent collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Le Chateau Dufresne in Montreal.
In addition to her husband, Miss Haraszty is survived by two sisters, Charlotte Borsody of Boston and Eva A. J. P. Taylor of London.
The family has asked that any memorial contributions be given to the Cedars-Sinai Hospice Program.
