Marianne Brandt (1893-1983) German painter, sculptor, photographer and designer who studied at the Bauhaus School and became head of the metal workshop in 1928.

This morning I was looking at The Curated Object a website that anyone interested in art, antiques and the history of design should have bookmarked. It is an ever changing list of international decorative arts exhibitions all over the world. Lots of incredible objects to look at and learn about.

Today, my eye caught this amazing coffee pot. 

Marianne Brandt was born in Chemnitz as Marianne Liebe. In 1919 she married the Norwegian painter Erik Brandt, with whom she traveled in Norway and France. She trained as a painter before joining the Weimar Bauhaus in 1923. There she became a student of Hungarian modernist theorist and designer László Moholy-Nagy in the metal workshop. She quickly rose to the position of workshop assistant and succeeded Moholy as the workshop's director in 1928, serving in the post for one year and negotiating some of the most important Bauhaus contracts for collaborations with industry. These contracts for the production of lights and other metal workshop designs were a rare example of one of the workshops helping to fund the school. After leaving the Bauhaus for Berlin in 1929, Brandt worked for Walter Gropius in his Berlin studio. She subsequently became the head of metal design at the Ruppel firm in Gotha, where she remained until losing her job in the midst of the ongoing financial depression in 1932.
During the period of National Socialism in Germany, Brandt attempted to find work outside of the country, but family responsibilities called her back to Chemnitz. She was unable to find steady work throughout the period of the Third Reich.
In 1939 she did become a member of the "Reichskulturkammer," the official Nazi organization of artists, in order to obtain a few art supplies, which had otherwise been forbidden to her. However, Brandt was never a member of the National Socialist Party. After many years of living apart, she and Erik Brandt officially divorced in 1935.
Brandt died in Kirchberg, Saxony at the age of 89. While the Bauhaus was generally reviled as "decadent" during much of the GDR period, by the end of her life Brandt had a loyal group of students from her many years as a teacher of design.

Brandt's designs for metal ashtrays, tea and coffee services, lamps and other household objects are now recognized as among the best of the Weimar and Dessau Bauhaus. Further, they were among the few Bauhaus designs to be mass-produced during the interwar period, and several of them are currently available as reproductions. In an auction in December 2007, one of her teapots —the Model No. MT49 tea infuser— was sold for a record-breaking $361,000.

Beginning in 1926, Brandt also produced a body of photomontage work, though all but a few were not publicly known until the 1970s after she had abandoned the Bauhaus style and was living in Communist East Germany. The photomontages came to public attention after Bauhaus historian Eckhard Neumann solicited the early experiments, stimulated by resurgent interest in modernist experiment in the West. These photomontages often focus on the complex situation of women in the interwar period, a time when they enjoyed new freedoms in work, fashion and sexuality, yet frequently experienced traditional prejudices. Brandt's montage works were subject of the touring exhibition entitled "Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt," organized by Elizabeth Otto, which appeared at the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum and the International Center of Photography in New York from 2005 to 2006. Otto's catalogue of the same name explores these works and Brandt's life. All photographs courtesy of Diesel Punks

Brandt is also remembered as a pioneering photographer. She created experimental still-life compositions, but it is her series of self-portraits which are particularly striking. These often represent her as a strong and independent New Woman of the Bauhaus; other examples show her face and body distorted across the curved and mirrored surfaces of metal balls, creating a blended image of herself and her primary medium at the Bauhaus. Text courtesy Wiki

Raymond Loewy: The Father of Industrial Design (1893-1986)

The original idea for this post was to document the history of Air Force One, the Presidential aircraft. In 2016, a stunning new Boeing 747-8 will replace the Boeing VC-25 that has been in use since 1985. Hearing that, made me look back at the history of the aircraft, which led me to the work of Raymond Loewy. Also known as the Father of Streamling, his body of work is incredibly immense and too vast for this post so I will concentrate only on the portion of his work related to Air Force One.

After a brief but promising career as a fashion illustrator, Raymond Loewy dedicated his talent to the field of industrial design. Loewy's creative genius was innate, and his effect on the industry was immediate. He literally revolutionized the industry, working as a consultant for more than 200 companies and creating product designs for everything from cigarette packs and refrigerators, to cars and spacecrafts. Loewy lived by his own famous MAYA principle - Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. He believed that, "The adult public's taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm."
A popular lecturer as well, Loewy spoke at institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and the University of Leningrad. He founded three design companies: Raymond Loewy and Associates, New York; Raymond Loewy International, London; and Compagnie de I'Esthetique Industrielle, Paris. His writings include The Locomotive: Its Aesthetics (1937), the autobiography Never Leave Well Enough Alone (1951) and Industrial Design (1951).

Raymond Loewy launched his career in industrial design in 1929 when Sigmund Gestetner, a British manufacturer of duplicating machines, commissioned him to improve the appearance of a mimeograph machine. In three days 28-year-old Loewy designed the shell that was to encase Gestetner duplicators for the next 40 years. In the process, he helped launch a profession that has changed the look of America.

The Gestetner duplicator was the first of countless items transformed by streamlining, a technique that Loewy is credited with originating. Calling the concept "beauty through function and simplification," Loewy spent over 50 years streamlining everything from postage stamps to spacecrafts. His more famous creations include the Lucky Strike cigarette package, the GG1 and S1 locomotives, the slenderized Coca-Cola bottle, the John F. Kennedy memorial postage stamp, the interior of Saturn I, Saturn V, and Skylab, the Greyhound bus and logo, the Shell International logo, the Exxon logo, the U.S. Postal Service emblem, a line of Frigidaire refrigerators, ranges, and freezers, and the Studebaker Avanti, Champion and Starliner.
By 1951, his industrial design firm was so prolific that he was able to claim, "the average person, leading a normal life, whether in the country, a village, a city, or a metropolis, is bound to be in daily contact with some of the things, services, or structures in which R.L.A [Raymond Loewy Associates] was a party during the design or planning stage."

For an incredible, in-depth look at the life and work of Loewy visit here

Raymond Loewy, Jackie Kennedy and Air Force One

"For all the interest in the “flying White House,” we generally ignore its blue-and-white paint job, serif lettering and heraldry, a graphic scheme rich in history.
The tale of its origins is almost urban legend: as I had heard the story told, Raymond Loewy was hired by Jackie Kennedy to create a smart graphic identity for President Kennedy, who was then being flown in a Boeing 707. That design—white on top, polished metal on bottom, with two hues of blue in-between—remain on the current 747, along with all-caps Caslon reading “United States of America,” the presidential seal on the sides and the American flag on the tail.

The specific origins of the design, like pretty much everything from the Loewy office, are obscured in mystery. Loewy talked about the design in his 1976 book Industrial Design and claimed to have spread out his drawings in the Oval Office to go over the design with JFK. Loewy told of three-hour-long sessions with the president, working on the floor with scissors and rubber cement.
In this typewritten account, Loewy writes that he saw President Kennedy's 707 for the first time in March 1962, when JFK flew into Palm Springs, where Loewy had a house. (That's the famous trip, March 23–25, during which Frank Sinatra had hoped to host Kennedy, but Sinatra's mob connections led the president's handlers to avoid him. In frustration, Sinatra personally took a sledgehammer to the concrete helipad he had built for the president's arrival when, adding insult to injury, he learned that JFK was staying with Bing Crosby, instead.)

Loewy met with Gen. Godfrey T. McHugh, the president's Air Force aide, in charge of his travel. He had known McHugh for a long time—a reminder of the sort of networking for which Loewy was famous, and probably a lesson for us all. Loewy recalled pointing out “the unbelievably poor manner in which the paint was applied” and the “rather gaudy” color scheme of the plane. “I felt that the new aircraft could become an image of the American government,” he wrote, “and that its appearance should be impeccable in every way. Loewy said he and his firm would be happy to donate their services.

His offer accepted, the designer showed up at the White House that May with four graphic schemes and five lettering alternatives. Loewy credits his graphics department, headed by Roy Larsen, with the lettering. The first proposals, according to Loewy, were based on a red theme, the Air Force standard. ”Together we arranged the panels on armchairs lined up against the west wall and the president without hesitation selected one of the graphics.“ His choice was also the one Loewy preferred." Courtesy of here

Here is how Wiki tells this collaboration:

Under John F. Kennedy presidential air travel officially entered the jet age.^[18] He had used the Eisenhower-era jets for trips to Canada, France, Austria and the United Kingdom.^[19] However, in October 1962, the administration purchased a Boeing C-137 Stratoliner, a modified long-range 707—Special Air Mission (SAM) 26000.^[20]
The Air Force had attempted a special presidential livery of their own design: a scheme in red and metallic gold, with the nation's name in block letters. Kennedy felt the aircraft appeared too regal, and, on advice from his wife, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, he contacted the French-born American industrial designer Raymond Loewy for help in designing a new livery and interiors for the VC-137 jet.^[2] Loewy met with the president, and his earliest research on the project took him to the National Archives, where he looked at the first printed copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, and saw the country's name set widely spaced and in upper case in a typeface called Caslon. He chose to expose the polished aluminum fuselage on the bottom side, and used two blues; a slate-blue associated with the early republic and the presidency, and a more contemporary cyan to represent the present and future. The presidential seal was added to both sides of the fuselage near the nose, a large American flag was painted on the tail, and the sides of the aircraft read "United States of America" in all capital letters. Loewy's work won immediate praise from the president and the press. The VC-137 markings were adapted for the larger VC-25 when it entered service in 1990.

Interestingly, Boeing makes no mention of Loewy, stating only that Jackie Kennedy designed the logo and color scheme.

Harlequin pattern china designed by Eva Zeisel. Sugar bowl with lid, creamer and gravy boat. Made by Hall Pottery.

One of the most popular mid-century modern designers was Eva Zeisel.  Her Harlequin pattern china just screams out modernism and has that Atomic Age decoration that collectors crave.

We have three fine pieces in stock for you right now. 

These pieces are available for purchase here

Eva Zeisel

Hungary (1906-2011)

 Eva Zeisel was continually intrigued by what she called her "playful search for beauty." A person of delightfully defiant spirit, the designer was just beginning her career when she declared war on the fashionable avant-garde. "I didn't accept the purism of modern design," she said. "In my definition, if it gave beauty to the eye, it was beauty."

Zeisel was born Eva Striker in Budapest in 1906. Her father ran a textile factory and her mother was an outspoken feminist and one of the first women to earn a doctorate at the University of Budapest. It was through her mother's urging that Zeisel switched from studying painting at the Budapest Royal Academy of Fine Arts to pursue the more practical career of ceramist. She apprenticed herself to a potter at a porcelain factory, an unusual path for an educated woman at that time. Zeisel persisted, graduated to journeyman status and became the first woman admitted to the local pottery guild. It was during this time that her work took on the sensuous, flowing and biomorphic forms that would continue throughout her career.

In 1932, Zeisel moved to Russia, explaining, "It was curiosity that moved me. I wanted to see what was behind the mountain." She found a job working for the Communist government as artistic director of the glass and ceramics industries. In May 1936, everything changed. "At 4:00am, there was a knock at the door, and so began a different life," she recalled. Accused of plotting to assassinate Stalin, Zeisel was sent to prison for 16 months, 12 of which were in solitary confinement. The accusations were fabricated and Zeisel never knew who was responsible for her release or how that joyous day came to be. "I hadn't seen any colors for a year and a half," said the designer.
Upon her release, she married Hans Zeisel. They lived in Vienna briefly, before the threat of Hitler made them leave for America. "I saw the Statue of Liberty and my fears came down. It was a very touching reception," said Zeisel of her October 1938 arrival. The next day she went to the magazine China and Glass and was immediately commissioned for ten ceramic miniatures for $100. She was also hired at New York's Pratt Institute, where she became the first person to teach ceramics as industrial design for mass production, rather than handicraft. Zeisel's work continued to gather acclaim, and in 1946, her all-white modern dinner service – a first by an American designer – was honored with an exhibition at MoMA. Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Met and the V&A. In 2005, she was awarded the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

Courtesy of Design Within Reach

#midcenturymodern #mcm #zeisel

1940's gun metal gray, art deco style desk lamp with brass decorations.

This just came in today so I thought I would let you know about it. All of this old, industrial style, lighting is popular with collectors these days, but the condition must be exceptional and functioning. Always check to make sure the plug and cord are in good shape before plugging it in. These kinds of desk lamps can be found very affordably. This one was made by Moe Lighting in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin and is available for purchase here

"Cabaret" by Bud Grossman Philadelphia, Pa. 1955 Sold in 2014

We really loved this painting. It just screamed out mid-century "Mad Men" cocktail and conversation time. Well exhibited and a prize winner. We agree.

From the Brady Bunch to Milo Baumann......

We did pretty well with mid-century sofas in 2014. If they are low, sexy, immaculate and have clean lines, they sell fast. They are getting hard to find in great shape though. The low green one we shipped to Southern California and the white, Milo Baumann to Houston, Texas. The bright, fun, flowered one looks like it was plucked right out of 1975.

Mid-century buyer from Milwaukee.

This guy seemed happy with his purchases. 

He got a green hospital chair by Hill-Rom and a great Danish Modern, Mersman Co. octagon shaped walnut lamp table.

From Common Sense Antiques we get this bit of info on Mersman:

"A classic example is that of the company name Mersman. Everybody knows that Mersman made all those occasional tables during the Depression era. After all have you ever seen anything else by Mersman? And they have been out of business for many years. Right? Not exactly. Otto Mersman opened his furniture making business in 1876 in Ottoville, OH under the name Mersman Tables. But he also made beds and bed parts as well a other types of furniture. After Otto gave the company to his two sons it went though several formats and name changes including Lenartz and Mersman Brothers. In 1906 the company became known as Mersman Brothers and Brandts Company and later that year was incorporated under the slightly altered name of Mersman Brothers Brandts Company. The company name changed once again in 1927 to the famous name of Mersman Brothers Corporation, located in Celina, OH."

Cathrineholm of Norway

Lisa started Hazel Home three years ago mainly focusing on her love of mid-century modern design. My background was in fine art and folk art. We are now one in life and the shop. I have learned so much from her about mid-century design especially in housewares. One area completely new to me was the design work of Cathrineholm of Norway.

We always sell out any pieces we have in stock, many times shipping them back to Scandinavia. The most famous design is the Lotus pattern. It looks like this. This is a casserole we sold in 2014. The other photos are courtesy of Ampersand Vintage Modern

The designer responsible for this striking collection was a woman by the name of Grete Prytz Kittelsen. Kittelsen, often referred to as the “Queen of Scandinavian Design,” was known for her beautiful work with sterling, enamel, and other metals. Her designs earned her numerous awards, as well as well-deserved attention as an inspiration and integral part of the Scandinavian Design movement.

 Grete in her studio 1960's

 (1917-2010)

Surprisingly, Kittlesen was not really the creator of the famous lotus motif that graces her most popular pieces. As the story goes, Arne Clausen, one of the workers at Cathrineholm, came up with the pattern and it was added to Kittlesen’s designs without her approval. Reportedly, she was never a fan of it. When you look around her minimalist Norwegian home, as it was featured as a house tour in an online magazine, you can almost understand why. Likewise, when you compare Kittlesen’s own designs alongside the lotus collection, the styles are distinctly different. (courtesyampersanvintagemodern)

Be on the lookout for Cathrineholm products but beware, several companies produced cheaper copies throughout the 1960's and 1970's. Most times Cathrineholm is not marked so look for high quality, heavy enamel over steel pieces. The knock offs were thin, light and sloppy.

Adrian Mount Pearsall 1925-2011

One of the highlights of 2014 was acquiring and placing this pair of chairs and ottoman designed by the iconic American architect and designer, Adrian Pearsall. Known as the designer that "brought the space-age down to earth" these chairs were the most comfortable ones I ever sat in.

If you are interested in biographical information on Adrian Pearsall read his obituary here

Mr. Pearsall also designed his own amazing mid-century home. These photos came from the Pearsall Family website. adrianpearsall.com