Grosfeld House

A PAIR OF PLEXIGLASS AND WATERED SILK CHAUFFEUSESManufactured by Grosfeld House, circa 1940

Grosfeld House Furniture Company manufactured some iconic designs of the twentieth century.  Some of the great designers that work for the company were Vladimir Kagan and Lorin Jackson.  They produced some of the earliest chairs using the new product Lucite.

Pair of Grosfeld House Dressers in Ivory Lacquer

USA 1940s

Grosfeld House produced pieces that were edgy often unique and would add an accent to any room.  They were both classic and modern and the quality of the construction of their pieces was always impeccable

Shell Console by Grosfeld House

They were both moder and classical but always iconic.

2-Piece, Tufted Ottoman by Grosfeld House

Harvey Prober's Furniture had ''the quality of aging gracefully"

Travertine top side table as seen on 1stdibs

Harvey Prober, 1922-2003, was a mostly self educated furniture designer.  His earliest piece was designed at age seventeen while he was still in High School.  He sold it for ten dollars which was a good amount for a young man at the time.   After he graduated from High School he made regular trips from Brooklyn to Manhattan to sell his designs.  He did take some evening classes at Pratt in design, but learned production of furniture on the job with Trade Upholstery, a New York company.

Harvey Probber 1922-2003

During World War II he served in the Coast Guard, after his sevice he established his own furniture manufacturing company, Harvey Prober Inc. 1945-1986.  His designs were of elegant modern lines
with touches of bright color.  He believed that good design would stand the test of time, "Having the quality of aging gracefully."  This he believed to be the fourth dimension of furniture.   Augmenting this he used beautiful materials.

Probber Sectional Sofa Todd Merrill Antiques

He believed in flexibility of function. He introduced in the forties independent geometric shapes of furniture, which became sectional modular furniture. He expanded on this in the seventies with even more innovations of his sectional seating.

Rosewood Decagon Lamp Table by Harvey Probber

F

Paul Klee pronounced Clay

Ad Parnassum (1932) Paul klee

I studied Art History under Parker Leslie at Old Dominion College in the 1960's.  One of the Modern Artist we studied was Paul Klee (December 18, 1879 –  June 29, 1940).  I remember that he was a fore runner in the mordernism movements, however I had forgotten how utterly charming his works were.  That was until Lewis purchased a wonderful rug made in the 1970's after a painting by Klee.

l-Polyphony 1932 by Paul Klee

Moved by the whimsical quality of the rug and it's palette of colors, I decided to look once more into the works of Klee.  Klee a Swiss artist, who is also considered a German artist, studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich.  He excelled in drawing but felt that he lacked a concept of color at that time.  After finishing his studies he traveled to Italy where he had a great appreciation of the colors that surrounded him there.  He continually felt that he had a lot of work to do to understand colors. Taking an over view of his work you can see how he developed his keen sense of color by continually studying color in his paintings.  He was influenced by the modern movements in art at the time, among these the cubism, expressionism, and surrealism.  He met and worked along side the Russian Artist, Wassily Kandinsky.  They both taught at the German Bauhaus School.  He grew up in a musical family and musical rhythms seemed to be an influence in his art.  He also had an almost child like view of the world in some of his paintings as well as a sense of humor.  After struggling with color he wrote about it.  This was published in English as the " Paul Klee Notebooks."  Those are considered to be as important to modern art as some of the writings of da Vinci were to the Renaissance..

part of charming rug after Paul Klee Painting 1926