Mid2Mod: Larsen

Showing posts with label Larsen. Show all posts

Monday, January 30, 2012

Jack Lenor Larsen

Jack Lenor Larsen (1927- ) was born in Seattle, Washington, to Norsk-Canadian parents. He studied architecture at the University of Washington, but in 1945 he took a weaving class, which changed the course of his life.

He worked for a time at Handcraft House in California, teaching weaving to famous students like Joan Crawford, until he was offered a position as teaching assistant at Cranbrook Academy, from which he received a Masters of Fine Arts in 1951.

In 1952 Larsen move to New York, and by 1953 he had formed Jack Lenor Larson, Inc. Florence Knoll, who had rejected his portfolio in 1951, asked him to do a group of furniture fabrics in olive green and shades of orange, which became the avocado green and harvest gold of the 1960s.

In 1954 he opened a showroom on Park Avenue and sold to customers like Marilyn Monroe and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1958 he designed upholstery fabrics for Pan Am. By 1974 his various companies were producing fabric in 30 countries. He was also operating as Larsen Design Studio, Larsen Carpet and Leather, and Larsen Furniture.

While Larsen has designed many of the beautiful textiles sold by his companies, he has also employed many talented designers who have created many of the fabrics for Jack Lenor Larsen, Inc. and Larsen Design Studio.

His work is displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and the Fashion Institute of Technology, among others. His art center, LongHouse Reserve, houses treasures from around the world.

From nytimes.com, artists.parrishart.org, craftinamerica.org