Gwathmey Siegel Commission Cocktail Table

“Jason” cocktail table in stainless steel and glass by New York City designer and interior decorator Gary Gutterman. An exceptionally well-executed continuous form with the unusual f...

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...

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...

First edition of the second volume (of three) of the renowned graphic design publication Die Quelle (the Source), deemed, along with the journal Die Flache, as among the finest examples of Secession-style graphic design. Published by M. Gerlach & Co of Vienna and Leipzig; not dated but circa 1902-1905. Buchschmuck und Flachenmuster translates to Book Decoration and Surface Design. It presents the work of Max Benirschke (1880-1961), an Austrian architect, illustrator, and designer who studied at the Kunstgewerbescule in Vienna under Josef Hoffmann and was subsequently hired by Peter Behrens in 1903 to teach at his newly founded School of Applied Arts in Dusseldorf. In 1900, Benirschke was enlisted by the famed Viennese publisher Martin Gerlach to produce a folio for Die Quelle; the result shows Benirschke “at the height of his Jugenstil period with a series of curvilinear plant motifs and patterns.” According to Austrian gallerist Michael Steinbach, the present volume is “one of the most important design portfolios...