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Showing posts with label Lane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lane. Show all posts

Friday, December 2, 2011

Back in the day: Lane graduation boxes

The Lane Co., Inc. began making miniature cedar chests in 1925. In 1930 the company's savvy sales manager came up with the great promotional idea of giving them away to girls graduating from high school in the hopes that their parents would buy them full-size cedar chests to celebrate their graduation or that they would buy a chest when they had homes of their own.

Girls were sent an invitation from Lane to pick up one of the cedar boxes from a local furniture store. By 1984 more than 15 million of the small chests had been given away. (The promotion must have been a spectacular success, because every household I remember when I was growing up had a Lane cedar chest. I had my mother's and my grandmother's for years, and my daughter still has a very mid-century style Lane chest that belonged to a relative.)

Many girls finishing high school from 1930 through the mid-1980s have held onto their miniature Lane cedar chests and still keep high school mementos locked inside. Other less sentimental girls have allowed their chests to meet the fate of so many other mid-century pieces that have been lost to landfills or sold in garage sales.

From fundinguniverse.com


Lane graduation box
alleewillis.com

1950s Lane cedar chest ad
vintageadbrowser.com

Monday, December 6, 2010

Adrian Pearsall

Adrian Pearsall (1926- ) was trained as an architect but is best known for his furniture design. With his brother Richard and wife Dorie, he founded Craft Associates in 1952 and saw immediate success providing affordable, quality furniture that incorporated the use of bold styling and unique color combinations.

Influenced by Vladimir Kagan and George Nakashima, Pearsall is best known for his dramatic high-backed chairs, sofas with attached end tables and his signature gondola sofas, which have become highly valued among collectors. After the sale of Craft Associates to Lane in 1968, Pearsall became a partner at Comfort Designs.

In 1962, Pearsall designed his family’s home in Pennsylvania, a 10,000 square foot ranch which featured six bedrooms, an indoor pool, floor to ceiling glass, elaborate interior stonework, custom fireplaces, multiple courtyards and, probably the most spectacular feature of all, a island dining room situated in a reflecting pool.

A recent ad in Atomic Ranch, placed by the Pearsall family, is offering the fabulous home for sale, as Pearsall is now in his 80s and suffering from a syndrome similar to advanced Alzheimer’s. Pearsall’s family is in the process of cataloging all his designs on the Adrian Pearsall site.


I recently got a Pearsall couch for $125, and my daughter picked up a Pearsall coffee table base and end table base (without glass) for $8.  There's a blue version of the white chairs below at a local mid-century shop Lula B's for $2500, and it's taking all my willpower not to go put it on layaway.


Reupholstered gondola sofa, 1950s
1stdibs.com

High-back sculptural wingback chairs, 1960s
1stdibs.com

Sofa, 1960s
1stdibs.com

Tables, 1960s
1stdibs.com

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Saturday, November 27, 2010

In the manner of...

When searching for vintage furniture, the term in the manner of crops up frequently.  Sometimes it's used to denote a piece of furniture that is not marked and whose provenance is unknown.  Other times it's used to indicate a piece that is very similar, but not quite of the same quality, as a known work by an acclaimed designer.

I'm fascinated by the number of designs that are borrowed so liberally.  I have a vintage Lane coffee table in my study/guestroom.  I've always loved it, and after my post on Grete Jalk, now I know why.  It's practically an exact replica of one of her designs...same upturned lip on the top, same legs, same bar supporting the  magazine shelf underneath. The only discernible difference is that there are nine spindles on Jalk's and seven on the Lane.

I guess the term for that is Nobody cares about your Danish patent.


Grete Jalk teak coffee table for Glostrup Mobelfabrik, 1960s
danishmodernla.com

My walnut Lane coffee table, 1960s

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

You'll ruin your eyes...

The 1950s saw an ever-increasing presence of television in middle-class households. Though still in its infancy, the television was already showing itself to be the centerpiece of the modern home. "TV" was life-altering in the same manner as the personal computer was three decades later, and, as with most technological advances, there were concerns. Much was made of the possibility that watching television in a darkened room could result in eye damage.

It wasn't long before many televisions were topped with a new adornment, a backlit statuette known as the TV lamp. It was felt that the ambient light generated by these lamps reduced eyestrain, permitting guilt-free viewing. Soon TV lamps became a must-have addition to the family television, positioned front and center, rather like a hood ornament on a 50s-era automobile. While their reign as a favorite piece of home decor only lasted about ten years, they possess significance in mid-century design history.

TV lamps came in thousands of styles from hundreds of manufacturers, and while they were occasionally made out of other materials, most were shiny glazed ceramic in one of the popular colors of the day. Most of these household sculptures were of animals, including the horse, deer, dog, bird, domestic cat and the ever-popular panther, but some were of people (often an Asian or mermaid theme) and still others were purely an exercise in abstract design.

From TVlamps.net



Texans, Inc. rare wax-resist process panther lamp
TVlamps.net

Snider clock/lamp combination
TVlamps.net

Lane flamingo lamp with candy dish base
TVlamps.net

Lane pink poodle lamp with candy dish base
TVlamps.net

Miramar chartreuse lamp/planter combination
TVlamps.net

Modern Art Products Asian woman lamp
TVlamps.net

McCoy mermaid lamp
TVlamps.net