BIJOU, modern sculptural shelf, object of art, collectible quiet luxury

Thomas Newman studied art history at Swarthmore College and enjoyed making things in his father’s basement workshop. A self-taught woodworker, he has had a fifty-year career that began by restoring antiques. It was a lesson, not only in a wide range of woodworking techniques, but also in various traditional furniture styles. He developed a specialized table-making business and built more than 500 custom tables. Over this period his work has been featured by nearly every major design firm in New York City. Vladimir Krasnogorov joined the studio in 2001 and is the principal designer of its new line of sculptural, carved-wood furniture. He grew up in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and always dreamed of being a furniture maker. Coming of age during the collapse of the Soviet Union, he searched for new designs to liberate his creative spirit from the oppressive boredom of bureaucratic Soviet style. This led him to Kazimir Malevich’ Suprematism and the Russian Avant-Garde of a century ago. His work, in a real sense, is an echo of the revolutionary design ideas of that era, now set in a post-Soviet world. His designs reflect an effort to achieve balance, harmony and proportion in new forms for a vision that is entirely his own.