A popular designer who had his heyday from the late 1940s into the 1970s, Harvey Probber is one of the post-war American creative spirits whose work has been recently rediscovered by collectors. His designs are by-and-large simple and elegant, but his signal achievement was to pioneer one of the key innovations of mid-20th century furniture: sectional, or modular, seating.
Even as a teenager, the Brooklyn-born Probber was making sketches of furniture designs — and selling them to Manhattan furniture companies. He began working as a designer for an upholsterer once he finished high school and, apart from a few evening classes he took as an adult at Pratt Institute, he was self-taught about design and furniture making.
After wartime service — and a stint as a lounge singer — Probber founded his own company in the late 1940s. A lifelong familiarity with the needs of New York–apartment dwellers doubtless sparked his most noteworthy creation: a line of seating pieces in basic geometric shapes — wedges, squares, half-circles — that could be arranged and combined as needed. Modular furniture remained the core idea of Probber’s business throughout his career.
As a self-trained designer, Probber was never wed to any particular aesthetic. He preferred the simple lines now associated with mid-century modernism for their inherent practicality, but often used hardware to enliven the look of his pieces, or added elements — such as a ceramic insert in the center of a round dining table — that was visually interesting and could serve as a trivet. He gravitated toward bright fabrics with attractive, touchable textures that might be satin-like or nubbly. Above all, Probber insisted that the sofas, case goods and other products that came out of his Fall River, Massachusetts, factory be built to last.
“The quality of aging gracefully,” Probber once told an interviewer, is “design's fourth dimension.” This quality he realized: Probber furniture is just as useful and alluring now as it was when made — and maybe even more stylish.
Find a collection of vintage Harvey Probber side tables, sectional sofas, chairs and other furniture on 1stDibs.
Gerald McCabe Slat Settee for Pacific Furniture
By Gerald McCabe, Pacific Iron
Located in New York, NY
Rare slatted settee on chromed steel base designed by Gerald McCabe and produced in California by Pacific Furniture, circa 1965. Sort of Marshmallow sofa m...
Chrome
Carl Koch Techbuilt Spacemaking Furniture
By Carl Koch
Located in New York, NY
Unit furniture of Philippine mahogany with white Masonite panels consisting of a module with sliding Masonite doors and a double wide module with an open front. Designed by Harvard-educated, Boston-area architect, designer, and urban planner Carl Koch as a corollary to his prefabricated Techbuilt houses and produced in 1955. Koch was a pioneering champion of prefabrication in housing in mid-century America, first with his much-publicized but ill-fated all-steel Lustron houses in the late 1930’s, then with his more successful wooden Tech-Built houses, introduced in 1953. In At Home with Tomorrow, his 1958 paean to prefabrication, he lays out his opposition to the traditional hammer-and-handsaw construction methods that remained dominant even with conceptually modernist structures. His designs generally hewed to a regional brand of modernism rather than orthodox international style, taking into account local topography and climate—his iconic form is an A-frame with a pitched roof, more sensible in New England winters than a flat roof (though there are such Techbuilt designs). The basic Techbuilt formula suggested that modular, industrial production methods of the components combined with knock-down shipping and on-site assembly equalled lower cost and less waste. Variety and individuality could be achieved in how the elements were combined. This underlying philosophy involving modularity, flexibility, and industrial production methods applied to Spacemaking furniture as well, although interestingly enough, the furniture design preceded the architectural application, as Koch (et al) had submitted a version to the 1947 MoMA Low-Cost Furniture Competition (and so these units also preceded the famous 1951 Eames Storage Unit, a conceptually similar idea executed with metal framing). The furniture line began with requests for freestanding wardrobe...
Mahogany, Masonite
Henry Glass Prototype "Sling-Line" Folding Chaise
By Henry Glass
Located in New York, NY
Chaise of tubular steel with plastic end caps and its original mesh sling. By Austrian/American designer Henry Glass, 1960’s. Prototype from his Sling-Line series of mobile and space...
Steel
David Wurster Nest of Tables for Raymor
By David Wurster, Raymor
Located in New York, NY
Nest of three tables with birch tops and blackened tubular steel legs. Designed by David Wurster and produced for Richards-Morgentau (Raymor) circa 1952. Wurster's lighting was a reg...
Steel
Tepper-Meyer Versi-Table
By Gene Tepper
Located in New York, NY
Up-and-down "Versitable" by Tepper-Meyer Associates of San Francisco, produced by Fred Meyer circa 1954. The two-position design can function as a dining or writing table in the high...
Steel
Oscar Stonorov and Willo von Moltke Organic Design Coffee Table
By Oscar Stonorov and Willo von Moltke
Located in New York, NY
Boat-shaped coffee table with beveled edges in silvered walnut by the team of German-born American architects Oscar Stonorov and Willo von Moltke, designed for the Museum of Modern Art's 1941 Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition, and produced in very small numbers by Red Lion Furniture of Pennsylvania. Per the MoMA catalog, “a design may be called organic when there is an harmonious organization of the parts within the whole, according to structure, material, and purpose. Within this definition there can be no vain ornamentation or superfluity, but the part of beauty is none the less great—in ideal choice of material, in visual refinement, and in the rational elegance of things internded for use.” The suite of furnishings designed by Stonorov and von Moltke---including a vanity, coffee table, dining set, bed, nightstand, and case pieces--won honorable mention at the seminal competition and received a preferred placement at the MoMA exhibition itself. The winning entries in the competition, which included the iconic seating and unit furniture by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, were showcased at eleven department stores across the country--notably Bloomingdale's and Kaufmann's--and were intended for serial production, but America's entry into WWII a month after the opening of the exhibition, along with higher than expected price points across the board meant that few pieces were actually made outside the ones initially sent to the participating department stores. This was especially true for the Stonorov and von Moltke suite, which wound up being among the most expensive items...
Walnut
