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This rare eighteenth century mahogany Chippendale desk and bookcase is one of about one hundred known secretaries from this period. Its fine proportions, construction, woods, and stylistic elements such as the closed pediment, applied tympanum panels, distribution of interior drawers, and bracket feet indicate a Rhode Island origin, recently confirmed to be from maker Thomas […]

Armchair from the SC Johnson Wax Administration Building, Racine, WI,

Frank Lloyd Wright made this strikingly streamlined desk and chair for the S. C. Johnson & Son Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin. Their curved shapes and Cherokee red color echo those of the building. With enameled steel frames, a cantilevered work surface, swinging rather than sliding drawers, and hinged, removable wastebaskets, the desk and chair […]

Hybrid Holism,

Blo-Void I,

One of the most influential contemporary designers today, London based Ron Arad has been an important critical influence on design since the 1980s, when England emerged as a vital contributor to the field. With its sculptural vitality, this futuristic looking chair furthers Arad’s exploration of volume that began in the 1990s. Its striking form was […]

Red/Blue Chair,

The Red/Blue Chair is perhaps the most influential and recognizable furniture design of the twentieth century because it redefined traditional notions of form and space within the confines of a practical household object. This design blurred the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and architecture. By reducing form to a series of planes and boundaries delineating space […]

Eames Storage Unit (ESU),

The Eames Storage Unit (ESU) was first introduced by the Herman Miller Furniture Company in 1950. A system of modular storage units made of plywood, lacquered Masonite, and steel framing, the unit’s configuration could be easily rearranged as customers’ needs changed or as it was moved from living room to dining room to bedroom. The […]

Vase,

Rookwood Pottery was the best-known and longest-flourishing American art pottery company. Its establishment in 1880 predated the American Arts and Crafts movement and it survived for eighty-seven years, long after the movement had ended. This vase was painted by Grace Young, who was among the first of Rookwood’s artists to depart from floral decorations in […]

“Skyscraper” Bookcase,

As early as 1925 Paul T. Frankl designed wooden cabinetry inspired by the soaring buildings with flat surfaces, sharp angles, and stepped silhouettes that were being constructed in Manhattan. Thoroughly inspired by the modern and purely American forms of the skyscraper, his work also reflected the ornamental style of his native Vienna, where he trained […]

Nocturne Radio,

Walter Dorwin Teague’s Nocturne radio is one of the most memorable and remarkable icons of the Machine Age in America. Geometric and classically balanced, the radio is one of the most forwardly modern expressions in American design from the 1930s. The circular reflection of the blue mirror together with precise chrome strips gives the radio […]

The New Yorker (Jazz) Bowl,

First commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt for the governor’s mansion in Albany, this lively, elaborately decorated porcelain punch bowl is one of the original ten designed by Viktor Schreckengost as a special-order item for the Cowan Pottery Studio. The black slip design, glazed in Egyptian Blue—a color developed by Arthur Eugene Baggs for Cowan—uses the sgraffito […]