Mid2Mod: Paul Frankl

Showing posts with label Paul Frankl. Show all posts

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Paul Frankl

Paul Frankl (1886-1958) was born in Vienna where he studied architecture before coming to the United States in 1914. He was one of the principal shapers of American modernism.

Soon after arriving in the U. S., he began designing stage sets for the Theater Guild, and shortly thereafter he began designing furniture with shapes reminiscent of the Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building. He called this series his Skyscraper furniture, and it is emblematic of the Art Deco period.

In the early 1920s Frankl opened a shop in New York City, and his work included furniture, accessories, modern textiles, wallpaper and an interior design service. In addition to his Skyscraper line, he began to create furnishings with Asian influence which featured lacquer surfaces.

In 1928 he was co-founder of the American Designer's Gallery and in 1930 he founded the American Union of Decorative Artists and Craftsmen. He gave lectures on "The Skyscraper in Decoration" and wrote New Dimensions: The Decorative Arts of Today (1928); Form and Re-Form (1930) and Space for Living: Creative Interior Decoration and Design. (1938)

In 1934 he moved to California, where he taught at the Chouinard Art Institute and the University of Southern California. He opened a shop on Rodeo Drive which catered to the Hollywood elite, such as Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and Alfred Hitchcock and designed for the mass market into the 1950s.

Some of his best-known work include his early use of biomorphic designs and new materials such as cork. He is also known for his rattan outdoor furniture.

From art-directory.info, antiquitiesweb.com, yalepress.yale.edu and askart.com

Skyscraper cabinet
swanklighting.com

Biomorphic cork coffee table
1stdibs.com

Checkerboard step tables
1stdibs.com

Console table
1stdibs.com

Cork coffee table
liveauctionworld.com

Cork side table
treadwaygallery.com

Cork and mahogany bench
redmodernfurniture.com

Speed settee
1stdibs.com

Rattan setee
houzz.com

Rattan chair and ottoman
metroretrofurniture.com

Monday, January 20, 2014

In the store: Paul Frankl dresser and nightstand

A fully restored 10-drawer dresser and dropfront nightstand by Paul Frankl for Johnson Furniture Company are now in the store. Both have been refinished in a bone-colored lacquer and retain original brass pulls which have a beautiful patina.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Johnson Furniture Company

Johnson Furniture Company was founded in 1908 by three brothers...Carl, Hjalmar and Axel Johnson...who had immigrated to the United States from Sweden. Before coming here, Carl had received a medal for his cabinetmaking skills from the king of Sweden. Tom Handley, who got his start at the prestigious London company of Waring and Gillow, became their in-house designer in 1908 and joined them as an officer in 1922. Handley established the company as a major producer of high-quality period revival residential furniture.

Upon Handley's death in 1926, David Robertson Smith took over as designer. Smith had worked for the famous Stickley Brothers Furniture Company, producing Arts and Crafts lines. In 1928 he led Johnson Furniture Company into the production of Art Deco and modern pieces. The company would later claim that they produced the first complete line of modern furniture in the United States.

Lorenzo (Renzo) Rutili was made head designer in 1933 and served in that capacity into the 1960s. He personally designed groups of modern furniture for the company, and he oversaw the contracted design of such famous modernists as Paul Frankl, Eliel Saarinen, Eva Lisa (Pipsan) Saarinen Swanson and J. Robert F. Swanson.
Under Rutili,, Johnson introduced a modular system for the home known as Flexible Home Arrangement (FHA), which was designed in 1939 by Saarinen and the two Swansons of the Cranbrook Institute. In the early 1950s Johnson produced several lines by Paul Frankl, such as the Contemporary line, made from pearwood with bleached cork countertops aand chairs with "plunging necklines," cutout backs that resembled the women's fashions of the day. Also in the 1950s, lines such as Country Directoire, Mediterranean and Riviera were designed by John Wisner.

In 1963 the last member of the Johnson family retired and sold the company to a group of investors under the leadership of James Van Oosten. Johnson Furniture was owned by Holiday Inns, Inc., between 1968 and 1975 and then returned to the ownership of Van Oosten. In 1983 the company merged with Rose Manufacturing Company to become RoseJohnson, Inc.

The company used a logo consisting of three teardrops spiraling around a common center, a sort of three-part yin and yang. This symbol commonly appears as a metal tag inside the right-hand drawer of case pieces, or on a paper label affixed to the back of a case piece or under the seat of a chair. Some paper labels between 1908 and circa 1930 also include a box with the printed signature “T.S. Handley”. In the 1960s the company name was printed in uppercase serif letters, with a crown resting on the “J”. During the late 1960s and early 1970s the trademark was a bold “J” over a small red dot.

From historygrandrapids.org