Max Jules Gottschalk (1909-2005) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a family of musicians, artists, designers and scientists. He entered Washington University at age 13 and studied art and design. After receiving a bachelor's degree, he did post-graduate work in radio engineering, archaeology, art history and music.
From 1939-1942 he lived in Newfoundland and worked as Chief Technical Advisor for the Department of Agriculture and Rural Construction. His job was to design furniture for a factory in Markland.
Upon his return to the United States, he moved first to New York City, where he was employed as an industrial designer for Teague Design. He later relocated to Tucson, Arizona, where he taught industrial design at Pima Community College and became chair of the Applied Design department.
His industrial designs include rotary card files and Scott paper towel holders for the Wheeldex Corporation, New York; lunar escape and air cushion vehicles for Bell Aero Systems; open frozen food refrigeration systems and open refrigerator cases for Hussman-Ligonier Company, St. Louis, Missouri; and electronic test equipment for Hughes Aircraft. He was president of Imagineering and chief of design development for Godesca/Gottschalk Engineering, makers of superfidelity sound systems.
His furniture designs made use of natural materials like wood and leather, often combined with more industrial materials such as steel and aluminum. Many of his pieces were left with a raw edge and employed leather with visible imperfections, which Gottschalk liked for its unique appearance. His logo appears on all his products.
From shiprocksantafe.com and journals.hil.unb.ca
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| Saucer chair, attributed booradleys.1stdibs.com |
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| High back sling chair 1stdibs.com |
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| icollector.com |
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| Sling armchair redmodernfurniture.com |
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| Max Gottschalk logo redmodernfurniture.com |
Thanks for the information! Truly a man of many talents...Really like the designs..
ReplyDeleteI have an original Max Gottchalk highback chair and ottoman for sale. My husband was a design student of Max in Tucson, AZ at Pima Community College. He helped Max build these chairs and bought the chair and ottoman from him.
ReplyDeleteAnn, I'd love to see pictures of the chair and ottoman if you still have it.
DeleteI have five of his original pieces. a lamp, doughnut chair with the rosewood side table attached, a couch with the inflatable inner tube, corner chair with swinging attached coffee table with rosewood top, coffee table with granite tiles. thinking about letting them go.. dvdwhizkid@aol.com
ReplyDeleteIf you decide to sell them, my son-in-law would probably want to see photos. joe@mid2mod.com
Deletethanks pictures sent.
ReplyDeleteHello, the first chair appears in a book call Modern Leather Design by Donald Wilcox 1969 and is attributed to Leathercrafter New York. I'm interested if Max was associated with this company. The pair of chairs in the third pic are by Australian designer Clement Meadmore. They are strikingly similar to a design by Max but are well known in Australia as one of Meadmore's designs. I have quite a bit of info on Max and am interested in sharing with other fans. Feel free to contact.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Maxfan could you give me an idea of how much one of his pieces are worth? I have two high "bar" chairs of his.
DeleteHi, happy to take a look at your chairs, I may have the original sales literature for them. Feel free to email me - waxcarver@gmail.com Thanks, maxfan
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