In the studio with Emma Kohlmann
Inspired by her lifelong fascination with historical ceramics, American artist Emma Kohlmann’s La Pittura is a hand-painted ceramic tableware collection for HAY. Featuring motifs drawn from mythology, nature, and forms rooted in history, the collection translates her visual language into functional objects – turning familiar forms into vessels of feeling and beauty, and inviting art into daily life.
In her Massachusetts studio, we traced Kohlmann’s process up close – from the first lines to the final glaze – witnessing how her artistic world finds new expression in ceramics made to be lived with.
Emma Kohlmann in her Massachusetts studio
In La Pittura, Emma Kohlmann reimagines functional objects as expressive works of art. Plates, cups, and jugs become her new canvas for HAY, animated by the immediacy of her motifs. Kohlmann explains: “I start with a line and see where it takes me.” This intuitive way of working allows motifs to emerge and unfold across each form. The collection’s name, La Pittura – Italian for “the painting” – reflects its hand-painted character. Kohlmann calls it “the painted collection for HAY,” a family of ceramic pieces carrying her universe into the rituals of contemporary life.
Her inspirations move fluidly between mythology, plants, bodies, and architecture, yet at the core is a long-standing fascination with ceramics and their cultural resonance. Across centuries, ceramics have served both meaning and function. For this project, Kohlmann returned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – a place she has cherished since childhood – to study Renaissance pottery, Art Deco design, and Danish traditions. Drawing from these fragments, she weaves together historical influences with her own lens.
Emma Kohlmann in her Massachusetts studio
The human presence is visible in every line, contour, and uneven edge. “All of the pieces are imperfect,” Kohlmann notes. “There’s nothing perfect about it – because they’re made by people.” Skilled artisans, who studied her work closely, have hand-painted each item in the collection, giving the pieces a vitality that radiates from their surfaces. That sense of life runs through everything she does. For Kohlmann, nothing is static – everything is alive. In La Pittura, utilitarian objects become vessels of emotion, bringing colour, beauty, and feeling into daily rituals.
Accessibility remains just as important, echoing HAY’s ethos of making good design available to many. “Often art is seen as inaccessible. I wanted to make something people could afford and would want to live with,” she says. Rather than being put aside, these pieces are meant to move fluidly through daily routines – used and reused, as art becomes part of life’s ongoing rhythm.
Through La Pittura, Kohlmann’s world enters new contexts, reminding us that beauty isn’t fleeting or rare – it is here, present in meals prepared, tables set, and moments shared. For Emma and HAY, art is not only something to observe, but something to live with and enjoy.
Emma Kohlmann in her Massachusetts studio
Emma Kohlmann in her Massachusetts studio
Emma Kohlmann in her Massachusetts studio
