Danish Modern Klint and Wanscher

Kaare Klint born 1888-1954 is considered to be the father of Danish Modern furniture Design.  He introduced designs that utilized clean lines, superb craftsmanship and the best materials available.  He founded the Furniture School at the Royal Academy in 1924 and was a professor at the Danish School of Art and Design.  He was a great influence on the younger Danish designers of the period.

Iconic tall chest designed by Kaare Klint in the 1940's, Gallipoli

Classic Ole Wanscher Desk, Wythe

Ole Wanscher 1903-1985 was one of these young designers who studied with Klint.  He worked with Klint after he completed of his studies for several years, before setting up an office of his own specializing in furniture design.  He worked with the master joiner A. J. Iversen from 1930through the 1940's.  The designs that they produced together are now viewed as classic modern pieces.  He left his private firm and became associated with P. Jeppesens Møbelfabrik.  His designs were called orderly, delicate,and elegant. His work is highly valued among collectors. 

Pair of OLe Wanscher Arm Chairs, Revive, Asheland

We can thank these giants of modern design for all their influence of the designers who followed.

Arm Chair, Ole Wanscher, Wythe

Designer of the Twentieth Century, Alexander Girard

Folk art Church from the Girard foundation, Santa Fe New Mexico

We like to high light the lives of famous designers of the twentieth century.  Alexander Girard, 1907 – 1993 is a American born, multicultural architect trained twentieth century designer of note.  His mother, an American married his father, a Frenchman, after his birth in New York City, they moved to Florence, Italy where he was educated.  He was trained as an Architect, but his design talents varied over a wide arrange of objects and materials.  He honed his skills both in Italy, where he was exposed to some of the greatest architect designers of the period and in New York.

Alexander Girard 1907-1993

He is particularly know for his Textile design work on the cutting edge of design though his work for Herman Miller Design 1952-1975.  He worked creating fabrics for furniture designer by George Nelson, and Charles and Ray Eames.  Together they formed a design team that has influenced the fundamentals of design not only in the United States but the entire rest of the world. His  designs were based on geometrical shapes and forms related to architectural forms.

Pair of Chairs by Girard Herman Miller

He designed for the Braniff Airlines in the 1960's.  This was an effort on the part of Braniff to end the rein of the plain plane.  He worked on everything from the fabrics, the color of the plane itself, the ticket counters even the sugar paper packets.  Braniff had also hired Emilio Pucci to design the flight attendants uniforms.  Girard's colors ranged from both light and dark shades of blue to turquoise, oranges, beige, and tonal yellow.  These colors were used on the planes themselves to make them identifiable with the Braniff brand.  He designed a line of furniture for their ticket offices and the customer lounges, this was produced by Herman Miller and was available to the public in 1967 for one year only.

Sofa designed for Braniff Airlines

He designed the interiors of several major restaurants all over the world.  He did table settings for George Jensen, 1956, that included  flat ware, china and mats.  Girard designed a Mural for the John Deere company.  It consisted of found three dimensional objects.  In 1956, along with Charles Eames, he produced the documentary film, " The Day of The Dead."  Girard brought Italian style to American design.  He was a Renaissance man.

Designs by Alexande Girard

Girard and his wife were collectors of folk art.  They accumulated a large collection from all over the world.  They founded The Girard Foundation, 1962, to house their huge collection of Folk Art.

Fabric Design by Girard

Lady GaGa and Our Chandelier

We are seriously excited.  We were contacted last week by a designer to see if we would be willing to rent them a very large chandelier for a performance.  They inquired about several of the chandeliers that we had on our 1stdibs website.  They needed something white.  The Murano ones required too much work to break down and to put back together.  But one was just right.the very large globed chandelier attributed to Stilnovo.

 Massive Globed Chandelier Attributed to Stilnovo 

Not knowing where this was going or who was preforming we took down the chandelier and packed up the globes ready for pick up.  No sooner than we had gotten it down and packed up.  The delivery man was there to pick it up.  The label read The Washington Convention Center.  This got our curiosity up.  So we googled the event center to see if we could figure it out.  Maybe an Inaugural Ball?  It was exciting to think that maybe we had a little something to do with the inauguration.  It was not until today that we learned what had occurred.  The Chandelier was delivered to us safe and all together.  Today the designer who had rented it called to make sure that everything was intact.  She then proceeded to tell us where it had been and then sent us a photo of the piece in place during the preformance by Lady GaGa.  Who would have thought that a chandelier hanging in a shop in the tiny town of Kilmarnock Virginia would have a piece that was an important prop in a preformance by Lady GaGa and Tony Bennett for the President of the United States on his second Inauguration.  All I can say is WOW.  

Lady GaGa and Tony Bennett