Girard La Fonda Ashtray
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Tobacco Accessories
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Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Tobacco Accessories
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Alexander Girard for sale on 1stDibs
The director of design for the textiles department at Herman Miller, Inc., from 1952 to 1973, mid-century modern visionary Alexander Girard introduced bright, bouncy colors to upholstery and drapery fabrics, created jaunty graphics for marketing and advertising materials and devised motifs for everything from textiles to ceramics based on his true love: folk art from cultures around the globe.
The son of an American mother and an Italian father, Girard (known as Sandro to his friends) was born in New York City in 1907 but raised in Florence. He came from a creative family — his father was a master woodworker — and Girard began drawing and making his own playthings as a youngster. He had a fascination for nativity crèche tableaux, an enthusiasm that likely was the germ for his later interest in folk art. He went on to earn degrees in architecture at schools in both Rome and London before returning to New York in the 1930s and working in interior design.
By the 1940s, he and his wife, Susan, had moved to Detroit, where Girard was head of design for Detrola, a firm specializing in tabletop radios. The elegant bentwood housings that he developed for the devices won him acclaim, but, more importantly, at Detrola he met Charles Eames. The two became lifelong friends, and it was Eames who drew Girard toward Herman Miller, which had no dedicated textile department until Girard arrived, and most of its furniture was upholstered in mundane, “safe” hues. Girard changed all that, introducing fabrics in vivid shades of red, orange, yellow and blue. His early designs incorporated geometric motifs — stripes, circles, square, triangles and such. But toward the end of the 1950s he began to introduce folk art themes into his designs.
Girard did not collect important or expensive folk pieces. Rather he was drawn to simple objects such as handmade toys, figurines and models of animals, buildings and plants. The fabrics that emerged had whimsical, lighthearted motifs depicting, for example, angels, children, birds and flowers. Toward the end of his term with Herman Miller, in an effort to achieve what he termed “aesthetic functionalism,” Girard produced a group of what he called “Environmental Enrichment” pieces — silk-screened cotton panels emblazoned with various graphic designs, from bold geometric patterns to folk art themes. They were meant to divide spaces in offices or the home in lieu of walls while simultaneously functioning as art. Today, panels of vintage Girard upholstery textiles have become premium collectibles. The designer's furniture is less well known, primarily because most of it was created for private commissions.
Girard’s most lasting contribution may be his folk art collection. He and Susan had begun gathering pieces shortly after their marriage, in 1936. By the 1970s, they had amassed the world’s largest collection of cross-cultural folk art, composed of more than 100,000 pieces from around the world. The Girards donated their holdings to the Museum of International Folk Art, in Santa Fe (where they had moved in the ’60s), quintupling the institution’s collection, and a new wing — named for the Girards — had to be built to hold it.
Find a striking range of vintage Alexander Girard seating, tables, textiles and other furnishings on 1stDibs.
Finding the Right tobacco-accessories for You
Antique, new and vintage tobacco accessories are not typically works of art, but, even if you’ve kicked the habit, an ornate mid-century modern ashtray, bronze cigar cutter or Art Deco cigarette case — collector’s items, all — will prove to be a unique accent piece for your bar cart, coffee table or mantel.
Cigar connoisseurs know the value of a good cigar box or humidor. Humidors safely store cigars at the right temperature so they don’t retain moisture and deteriorate in quality. Depending on the size and type of cigar, a cigar cutter is also an important accessory for the consummate cigar smoker. There are guillotine cutters, cigar scissors, V-cutters and punch cutters. These tools are useful, but, as part of a 19th-century upgrade for your contemporary desk, antique tobacco accessories are also a fun way to integrate personal expression into your workday. A sleek vintage cigarette case or lighter can introduce some pizzazz to the shelves of your home library or any other surface where you display your collectibles.
While ashtrays might not immediately strike you as interesting and provocative objects that deserve to be part of your decor, these accessories have taken on all manner of forms and styles over the years. Old glass ashtrays, which are quite popular and easily found in free-form, organic shapes, can be a purely decorative final touch when styling a coffee table. Visionary designers such as Isamu Noguchi — one of the most prolific and protean creative forces of the 20th century — popularized the idea of tobacco accessories as art with projects such as his decorative ashtrays.
Discover an extensive collection of antique, new and vintage tobacco accessories for your home today on 1stDibs.